


Incomplete Data

by ParvumAutomaton



Series: Forgotten Future [2]
Category: Young Justice (Cartoon)
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Ensemble Cast, Multi, canon ships exist, comic canon ships exist, depiction of mental abuse, different ships in different timelines, non-canon rairpair ships exist, ships are not the focus
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-26
Packaged: 2019-03-21 22:23:34
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13750419
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ParvumAutomaton/pseuds/ParvumAutomaton
Summary: The Reach are gone, but Jaime can not help but worry that the threat is not. The Scarab was fighting and undermining the Reach while on mode, and Jaime knows that the only way that they would serve the Reach for 40 years would be if the host wanted it.Which leaves Jaime with a very worrying revelation. One that comes to a head when Eobard Thawne comes to the past with the revelation that in his future, the Reach apocalypse is still on.Special thanks to Windona and Weirdowhotalkstoofast (weirdnonsensefandomstuff on tumblr) for all their help with brainstorming and editing. Seriously, this would not have been done without you both.





	1. Conversations at Bibbo’s

Karen took a long slow sip of her coffee. Bibbo’s decaf wasn’t quite as good as his regular, but she had classes in the morning. Across the booth sat Jaime. He had a hot chocolate but he wasn’t drinking it. Instead, he was looking resolutely at the paper placemat.

She took one more sip and glanced around the diner. It was mostly empty, which was to be expected as most diners weren’t normally that busy between midnight and last call. The only other person was Bibbo himself. And Bibbo knew about their secret identities, so his diner was a safe place to talk about heroics. On a slightly more selfish note, Bibbo always gave the two of them drinks on the house, as thanks for helping him with his Krolotean problem.

“So,” Karen said breaking the silence. “What happened out there?”

“I messed up again.”

“You didn’t-,” Karen started. She stopped when Jaime gave her a look.

She took a deep breath. Strictly speaking he wasn’t wrong, and Karen knew it. They had both been on the same squad earlier in the night, tracking down a gang of thieves that called themselves the Madmen. The squad had finally cornered the group outside of Metropolis, but Jaime froze during the fight. And the Madmen got away without Jaime firing a single sonic blast or giant staple.

“Ok, maybe a little. But no one got hurt and that has to count for something, right Blue?”

Jaime looked away.

“Yeah,” he mumbled, “but there’s no guarantee for next time.”

“Which is why we’re here. So there won’t be a next time,” Karen said.

“Am I off the team?”

“What? No.” Karen stated firmly. Her tone implied that it was not even a consideration. But Jaime didn’t seem relieved. In fact he seemed to hunch over even more. Prompting Karen to speak again, but this time in a softer voice.

“Do you want to be?”

“I dunno.” Jaime shrugged. “Maybe I should be?”

Karen sighed. She didn’t respond immediately. Instead she waved Bibbo over and replaced her decaf coffee with regular. After taking a long drink of the new coffee, she directed her attention back to Jaime.

“Ok, I’m going to be up for the rest of the night,” she said, “so tell me what's going on.”

Jaime twisted a paper napkin between his fingers. He looked at it like it was the most interesting thing in the world for several moments before he spoke.

“I don’t know where to start.”

Karen waited, and a beat later Jaime spoke again.

“You’re not going to say ‘at the beginning’?”

Karen shrugged.

“I figured you were smart enough to think of that. So how about this?” she asked pulling out a pen and writing two lines on a napkin. She then folded it in half and pushed it across the table to Jaime. “It’s my username and password. If you wanted you could use that to delete like 90% of my college work. So if I betray your trust, you can.”

Jaime looked at it but didn’t touch the napkin.

“I don’t...”

“Jaime.”

He looked from his hands to Karen to the napkin and back to his own hands.

“Z’s ritual didn’t change my Scarab at all,” he finally said, quickly and quietly.

Karen waited a beat for him to elaborate. When he didn’t, she said, “The ritual obviously did something.”

“It set the green Scarab free, and it cut the Ambassador’s live feed. It made it harder, but not impossible, for the Scarab to override me.”

Jaime must have noticed Karen looking concerned, because he quickly backtracked.

“That’s not the issue. I know that they wouldn’t override me without a really good reason. I trust them. And that’s part of the problem. There wasn’t a reset. The Scarab I trust now is the exact same one you fought.”

“On the Warworld?” Karen asked, and when Jaime nodded, she continued. “Can you tell me what exactly happened?”

“Ambassador ordered us to retrieve the key and eliminate all resistance,” Jaime said slowly, “We- we didn’t have a choice about the objective, but how to achieve it was the Scarab’s call.”

Karen though for a second, carefully replaying every second of the end of that disastrous mission. It wasn’t hard, she already had the example in her mind that told her the fight on the Warworld wasn’t what it appeared to be.

“So, in essence every choice during the fight was the Scarab?” Karen asked.

“Yes.”

“So, sticking with sonic weapons that was the Scarab’s call?”

“Yes.”

“And closing the airlock?”

“Yes.”

“And correct me if I’m wrong, but space doesn’t really bother the armor, right?”

“Right.”

“And the Scarab knew that the rest of us would die in space, right?”

“Right.”

“So the only reason for the Scarab to close the airlock was to save our lives?”

Jaime nodded.

Karen studied him closely.

“You’re not looking relieved. So I take it that this is not a new revelation?”

“No, it’s not.”

Karen waited a second before speaking.

“The team will understand. They won’t blame the Scarab or you for trusting them, not if you lay it out like that. And if you don’t feel comfortable, I can...”

“No,” Jaime cut her off, voice shaking.

“‘No’ as in they won’t understand or no I can’t tell them?”

“Both.”

Karen pushed the napkin towards him again. “Look, I won’t say a word if you don’t want me to. But I do know a non-zero number of teammates who will understand. Mal will, I promise. And anyone who doesn’t, well, they’re not worth it.”

“No, they are worth it. And they would be right .”

Jaime buried his head in his hands. Karen could see his shoulders shake.

“Jaime,” she said softly.

Jaime didn’t look up, but he did start harshly speaking with a breaking voice.

“Hi Tye, I know you grew up with Maurice always ordering you around and being uncaring of your wellbeing if it meant he got what he wanted. So I want you to meet my new friend, who did exactly the same thing.”

Karen didn’t speak right away. And when she did, she leaned forward, making sure that her head was at the same level as Jaime’s.

“You could try this,” she said softly. “Tell him that the Scarab was trying to make sure that he knew ‘you’ couldn’t be trusted. To undermine the Reach. You tell him that the Scarab knows what it did was harmful, hurtful, and will not do it again. Could you do that?”

Jaime nodded slowly, hands moving with his head.

Karen leaned back and grinned. “See, we can work this out.”

Jaime didn’t move. Karen blinked.

“Is there something I’m missing?” Karen asked. “The Scarab’s not bad. They even fought the Reach when you were captured, best that they could.”

“I think the only thing that the Scarab wants more than freedom from the Reach, is to protect and be with me,” Jaime said, still not moving, “They’re my friend first and a rogue Reach agent second.”

“That’s sweet,” Karen said, smiling.

Jaime looked up at her, pained.

“That’s why I hesitate, now more than ever.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Bart didn’t recognize Green Beetle,” Jaime started like it should mean something. “And even if he did, in the three months that we were captured, the Scarab had analyzed what Green Beetle did to us and begun constructing countermeasures. Even without the ritual, the Reach would not have been able to hold us a year.”

“Isn’t that a good thing?” Karen asked.

Jaime shook his head.

“It’s not.” He said, “Bart hasn’t realized it yet, but the only way the Scarab would serve the Reach is if I, the host, wanted to. Bart’s future, it’s my fault. Something in me must be not good. Maybe somehow the Reach brought it out. But they couldn’t create it. And now, even though the Reach are gone, it still must be there.”

Jaime’s voice broke as he continued. “I don’t want it to be. And every shot, every action that I take,  I can’t help but to think what if this is the thing that starts me down that path?”

He was crying now. Karen didn’t point it out.

“Jaime you’re not...”

“But I could be. I...”

Jaime choked on his words and Karen gently put her hands on the table and pushed herself up. She stood next to Jaime, her hand on his shoulder gently squeezing. She waited until his shoulder stopped shaking.

“I’m getting us some pie. I hear the apple here is good. Would you like that?”

Jaime bobbed his head once and Karen patted his shoulder. She turned away and went to the counter. A wave and exchange of bills later she returned to the booth with two plates of apple pie.

But the booth was empty. Jaime was gone.

* * *

 

“And you’re sure that he didn’t just walk out?” Mal asked. He was seated behind a monitor at the Watchtower, but he had turned to give Karen his full attention.

“Yes, I’m sure,” Karen said, leaning forward with her hand was on his desk, just barely touching his.

“He has been acting stranger than usual.”

“Yeah, I know,” Karen said with a sigh. “That’s what we were talking about, at Bibbo’s.”

“Anything in particular, that you want to share?” Mal asked lightly.

She shook her head.

“I promised.”

“Alright beautiful,” Mal said. He tilted forward so that their foreheads touched for a second before he turned back towards the monitor. “I’ll take a look and see what I can find.”

“Thank you Mal,” she said.

Karen turned, her fingers tracing a light path from the desk up Mal’s arm as she walked away.

* * *

 

Mal didn’t like it when teammates were missing. The kidnapping of La’gaan, Jaime, Bart, and Gar still weighed heavy on him, even though he knew that Kaldur had been keeping an eye out on them to make sure nothing bad happened. And he had promised himself that he wouldn’t let that happen again. Especially not to the same kid.

After Karen left, Mal immediately started sending out requests for CCTV footage from the area. Strictly speaking he wasn’t supposed to do that without permission from a Justice Leaguer. But there was a fight involving Deathstroke that he was already investigating from that night, so it was easy enough to slip the requests for surveillance around Bibbo’s in with the rest. And he’d rather get started as quickly as possible, especially now since everything the League seemed to do post-Reach was bogged down with bureaucracy.

The rest of that day was slow. It was filled mostly with phone calls (Jaime’s parents were not happy that he was missing again), waiting for the footage to get in, and research into any events that could potentially be related. However there were no sightings of Blue Beetle, no UFO sighting that could possibly be him, no unexpected appearances or abnormalities on League satellites. The only thing that seemed to have anything to do with Jaime’s instant disappearance was the disappearance of money from several large banks, that occurred over the course of the day. As an afterthought, Mal also sent requests for security footage from those banks.

The next day, as the footage was slowly filtering in, Mal got pulled into an all hands on deck situation. The fight itself was over before Mal even made it to the central hub of the watchtower. He thought that that was a good sign, that the League had overestimated the threat when he was called in. But then he saw that it was between Flash and someone in yellow who had the exact same speed, and he knew that the League’s worry was justified.

From what he could tell going over the footage, which would be better described as a still image with occasional yellow and red streaks, the fight seemed to be over a half dead Tommy Terror. Flash was trying to save the Belle Reve inmate, and the yellow streak was trying to make him all the way dead.

Flash was able to prevail against the yellow streak, but that seemed to have more to do with the yellow streak leaving once Superman showed up and moved Tommy to safety, rather than the Flash having a clear upper hand against his foe.

The rest of the day was spent trying to figure out who this foe was. It was Mal who suggested testing the area for zeta and chronotron radiation. Although he didn’t know if he should be happy or concerned when they found trace amounts of both types of radiation still in the area.

Still it wasn’t any of their work that lead to the discovery of who Flash’s opponent was. Rather it was the opponent himself. Who in the aftermath of the fight, probably driven by frustration, vandalized the entirety of the Flash museum.

At least they had a name now.

Zoom.

The next morning Mal got an early start. He watched all the CCTV footage that he had. None of the cameras had a view into Bibbo’s diner, but Mal hoped that he would get lucky. He hoped that he would see a hint of Jaime, in or out of armor, in any of the videos but they all seemed to be nothing more than still frames with the occasional headlights of a late night car.

It was well into the afternoon when Mal finally pushed away from his work to grab lunch. He didn’t make it far before Kaldur called him over to look at an attack. Roy, Red Arrow, had sent them some shaky footage of a fight between Zoom and Sportsmaster, with a note that said detailing that according to Jade it had just happened, and they thought it might be useful.

And useful it was. The yellow streak, Zoom, slowed down enough during the fight that Mal could tell that he was wearing a costume identical but with inverted colors to Flash. He was meticulous in the way that he fought Sportsmaster. Phasing his hand through a kneecap, shattering an arm, it wasn’t a fight so much as torture. It seemed to be leading up to murder as well, but then, as swiftly as it had started, the fight stopped. With Zoom kicking Sportsmaster once more before disappearing in a blur of yellow.

If Zoom was fighting Sportsmaster, that might explain what happened with Deathstroke.

Mal spent the rest of the day and night finding hints of Deathstroke in the CCTV footage. It was well into the early morning hours when Mal finished his initial search, so he just took a short nap before he returning to it and scanning each Deathstroke appearance frame by frame for a telltale yellow streak.

And he did find it. Confirming his suspicions right before he was called on to help with a S.T.A.R. Labs robbery. Going through the surveillance video frame by frame meant another late night for Mal. But he was able to prove that the thief was Zoom.

Mal went to sleep satisfied but awoke only a few hours later in a panic.

Jaime and Karen had been close to the Deathstroke and Zoom fight. Especially considering the ground that a speedster could cover.

Mal scanned every bit of footage within several miles of Bibbo’s. The television in the background provided a pleasant background hum, until it didn’t.

G. Gordon Godfry’s voice came on. But he wasn’t condemning superheros. No, he was begging for his life. Zoom had him. He methodically broke fingers as he demanded Godfry repent for ever backing the Reach with each one.

And Godfry did. He argued that he had exposed the Reach. But Zoom didn’t care. At least not until he had made his way through Godfry’s fingers and his left arm. It was at that point he stopped, and then disappeared in a familiar yellow streak.

A yellow steak that was on Mal’s screen at the moment. A frame of CCTV that was taken less than a mile from Bibbo’s diner.

Mal called Karen.

“It’s Zoom. Zoom has Jaime.”

He heard her curse in the background.

“Zoom’s from the future, Bart’s future,” Mal explained, words rushing out. “He’s getting revenge on anyone related to the Reach.”

“I know,” Karen said softly. “I’m with the squad that went to the station. Zoom just took Kaldur.”

 


	2. Eobard Thawne

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The plan was to eat apple pie, not risk his life and existence going into extra-dimensional space so that he can collect data for Eobard Thawne. But it's not like he can refuse. Eobard is from the same future as Bart, the one destroyed by the Blue Beetle.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Chapter warning: depictions of metal abuse.

The last thing Jaime knew was that he had been waiting at Bibbo’s for Karen to get back with apple pie. And then, the Scarab’s cajoling to ‘eat the pie’ turned into alerts screeching in his head. He could feel someone holding him, feel the armor forming, but the world itself was a blur. A blur of blue and then of white.

And then before the armor could finish forming he was still again, sitting in a high backed chair at an unfamiliar table pushed against a plain white wall. He tried to get his bearings.

But there were no clues on the wall. So Jaime started pushing himself away from the table, only to be stopped by a firm hand on his shoulder. A piece of paper seemed to appear in front of him. It was filled with numbers, letters and diagrams that made no sense to him.

“Do you know anything else?” Someone asked him, while they grabbed both his shoulders and gently squeezed. “You must write it down, right now.”

“I don’t-,” Jaime started, only to be cut off by the grip on his shoulders tightening.

“You have to,” the person said, their voice gaining a hard edge.

And finally Jaime’s vision took on a yellow tinge. Finally he could feel the armor finish forming.

Jaime pushed back again. He was able to stand up this time. Slowly he turned around to face the person who had been speaking to him. It was a man, tall and lean, wearing what seemed to be Flash’s costume in design with the color scheme from Kid Flash’s, primarily yellow with red lightning embellishments.

“Blue Beetle,” he spoke in a clipped tone.

Jaime swallowed nervously. He could feel the armor compensate for the fact that he was shaking.

“Yeah,” he said once he found his voice. “And who are you?”

“Eobard Thawne,” the man stated, starring Jaime down. “I’m a time traveler. You see in my past the Reach wins, and I’m here to make sure it doesn’t happen.”

Jaime reached back and grabbed the table behind him. He could feel his stomach drop.

“What? No, we stopped that. They can't-”

Eobard cut Jaime off by moving faster than the Scarab could follow into Jaime’s personal space.

“It’s not that simple, kid. Allen didn't account for paradoxes when he built his time machine.”

“What does that even mean?” Jaime asked. He moved backward half a step but the table prevented any further retreat.

Eobard snarled. His form seemed to blur at the edges with barely contained rage. And when he spoke each word was harsh and clipped. “It means that in my time, my present nothing has changed. The Reach still win their conquest. They still rule the Earth. They still have most of humanity drugged into submission working to build Reach ships and harvest Reach food. And the ones, like me, who have immunity spend our whole lives alone and on the run. Stopping, even for a second, results in death. I grew up watching the televised spectacle of my great aunt’s death. Blue Beetle crushed her head because they feared her mind.”

Jaime shook his head, his throat dry. He managed to whisper, “It can’t be.” But in his heart he knew that it was. Because the Scarab was silent, just like when Bart warned him about his part in bringing about the Reach apocalypse. If Eobard had lied once, said one thing that wasn’t truthful the Scarab would have alerted him. The Scarab would have made it clear that he was attempting to manipulate him.

“It is,” Eobard said firmly, “but I have a plan to change it for good.”

Eobard’s hand moved forward. And even though he had no idea if it would work on his armor, the memory of Bart phasing his hand through a wall, made Jaime’s heart pound and vision narrow.

But Eobard didn’t touch him. Instead he grabbed the paper from the table behind Jaime.

“That’s where this data comes in,” he said, holding the paper up to Jaime’s face and shaking it. “If you can complete it then I can figure out how to decouple causality. And only then will I be able to make some changes that will stick.”

_{The Eobard Thawne is too fast to outrun, and there is too much magnetic and dimensional interference to call for assistance. Authorize lethal force?}_

“No,” Jaime answered quickly. He tried to whisper it under his breath but it was not quiet enough.

“What was that?” Eobard asked leaning in. His voice was low and dangerous, reminding Jaime far too much of Maurice.

“The Scarab’s worried,” Jaime stammered. “You’re very strong and...”

“It has nothing to fear,” Eobard said smiling and  pulling Jaime into a half hug, “We’re friends, unified in our opposition to the Reach, right?”

“Yeah, I want to stop the Reach, believe me. It’s just, I’ve never seen these numbers. I don’t know...”

Jaime trailed off. He could feel Eobard’s hand tightening against his armor. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Eobard scowling.

_{Probability of successful escape from Eobard Thawne without the use of lethal force is 5.34%. Repeating authorization request.}_

Jaime could feel the Scarab growing more desperate as Eobard’s mood soured. But he couldn’t justify fighting, killing, the resistance to the Reach apocalypse. Especially when he knew that it was his fault. So he slightly shook his head for the Scarab and then turned his attention to Eobard.

“Please, I want to help. I do. I just need a starting point.”

Eobard didn’t respond right away, at least not verbally. Instead he pushed Jaime forward. Keeping his hand on Jaime’s shoulder between the Scarab’s front leg and Jaime’s neck, he guided Jaime though a well used laboratory. The walls were covered with papers stuck up at haphazard angles and lined with computers all connected by a tangled mess of wires. There were whiteboards and multiple pieces of half assembled mechanical junk scattered throughout.

_{Randomization of molecular distribution of armor could delay the Eobard Thawne’s potential phasing ability for 10 seconds at most. Without immediate lethal force the Eobard Thawne could adapt leading to the death of Jaime Reyes. That outcome is unacceptable. Repeating authorization request.}_

Jaime could feel his heart beating in his chest. Each time he blinked he saw his family, mourning. He was second guessing his decision when Eobard let him go.

The relief that flooded him was overwhelming. It was enough to distract him from what Eobard was doing. At least until large metal doors retracted.

Behind them was a strong electromagnetic field. Beyond that was a maelstrom of color and movement. The space itself seemed to twist back onto itself, extend infinitely, and simply stop, all at the same time. Jaime could barely stand to look at it.

“What is that?”

“That,” Eobard answered, “is what those numbers are attempting to describe.”

_{The Bleed -the lining of and linkage between all dimensions. Reach technology draws power from it, and uses partial submersion to avoid detection. It is the reason that the Reach fleet was undetectable during approach and infiltration of Earth.}_

Jaime took a step towards the electromagnetic barrier. He tilted his head slightly and asked, “Wait, so we can travel to it?”

For the moment Jaime ignored Eobard’s annoyed huff as he said, “If I could I could just collect the data I need myself.”

Instead, he focused on the Scarab’s explanation.

_{Our lack of mass makes maintaining partial submersion difficult. And full submersion is risky.}_

“Risky as in loss of limb or loss of life?” Jaime asked.

Eobard had stopped talking and was instead watching Jaime intently. But Jaime’s attention was still focused on the Scarab.

_{Both are potential outcomes. In addition, time dilation effects could theoretically send us hundreds of years into the future, or the past, or erase us from the fabric of space-time itself.}_

“So, very risky,” Jaime said, still looking at the moving colors of the Bleed, “But still possible. Do you think we could use our sensors to go in and record whatever data Eobard needs?”

_{Affirmative. But we do not have to do this. Lying is still an option. Escape is still an option. <You> do not have to do this.} _

“Yes, I do,” Jaime whispered before turning back towards Eobard.

But before he could fill him in, Eobard had already moved over to the computer. His fingers were flying over the keys at a speed that Jaime was sure was the fastest that the computer itself could take as input. It took only seconds for Eobard to look back up at Jaime.

“I’ve compiled all the data and theories that I have,” he said.

Jaime looked at the computer and a single cable extended out from the Scarab. It plugged into the computer and within seconds the Scarab alerted him that it had collected all of Eobard’s data.

“So what now?”

“I need more information on the time dilation properties of the Bleed. If you can find a current or rip that transects time, the fourth dimension, that should hold the key to beating causality, at least if you can find one moving negatively,” Eobard said before grabbing an earpiece and handing it to Jaime. “This should let you keep in touch with me.”

Jaime nodded and accepted the earpiece, which the Scarab easily integrated into his armor. Once that was done Jaime took two slow steps forward. He waited for the Scarab’s affirmation before moving the last inch, past the electromagnetic field and into the Bleed itself.

From the inside the Bleed wasn’t any less confusing to his eyes. And looking back at Eobard didn’t do much to ground him, as the Bleed distorted his image greatly.

“ _oo uc l k ki d d g”_

Jaime shook his head and the Scarab spoke up.

_{Translating: good luck kid.}_

Jaime flashed a thumbs up, but he was unsure if Eobard could see it. And then he let his Scarab work. Numbers ran across his vision as the Scarab ran through millions of computations and analyzed incoming data.

 _{Temporal abnormality detected,}_ the scarab said after a minute, _{Authorize total control of all movement?}_

Jaime hesitated, just for a second, before he said, “Yes.”

He tried to relax. To think about anything other than the Reach as the Scarab moved him forward. But thinking about not thinking about a thing, makes it that much harder not to think about it. And the more he thought about the Reach the more he could feel himself tensing up.

Their movement, including the calculations that ran in front of his vision slowed, and the Scarab spoke.

_{Count the number of threes that appear, but if there are multiple threes in a row subtract them.}_

Jaime did. He focused solely on his running total. And he reached 31 before he felt the world jerk. Focusing again on what was happening he could feel the Scarab firing their thrusters in full reverse. He could feel himself spinning around what felt like every possible axis, all at the same time.

“ _wo al ee mm da in fo it ay i g t s an ul th d be th th e d I el im lu at hi ed bt e b e le on ht ce d r ou l”_

The syllables hit him as an unintelligible mess. But he recognized the voice as Eobard’s. And the Scarab fired a grappling hook in the direction that most of the signal seemed to come from. Jaime felt himself being pulled forward, to the left and right and end over end.

Then he was skidding across a hard surface. The instant that he stopped moving the Scarab handed back control. And Jaime almost wished he hadn’t as he felt bile rise in the back of his throat. The suit, thankfully, reabsorbed it.

Once he remembered to open his eyes, he saw Eobard crouching over him.

“What happened?”

Jaime didn’t know. And he was still too queasy to think about it. So he just parroted the Scarab’s answer.

“Apologies, I miscalculated. However, data was still obtained and is being uploaded to lab computers.”

Eobard left him, and Jaime slowly pulled himself into a sitting position. He watched as Eobard poured over the new data. He was looking for any sign, a smile, a sigh of relief, to show that he had gotten the needed data. But instead all he saw was Eobard’s frown deepen.

Jaime pushed himself off the floor.

“If the data isn’t there, I can go back,” he said.

Jaime took a step towards the Bleed and Eobard was instantly in front of him, both hands on Jaime’s shoulders

“Hold up kid. I appreciate the enthusiasm, but I don’t want you dying,” he said and then continued on in a lighter tone. “At least not until I get my data.”

Eobard laughed, and Jaime simply nodded.

“So now you rest. I got a room ready while you were gone.”

“Gone?” Jaime asked softly as he let Eobard push him away from the Bleed and out of the lab. “I just went in and out I...”

“You hit a rip in time, but it was going forward not back. It’s been twenty some hours since you left.”

Eobard opened one of the doors across the hallway from the lab. Inside was a small dark room, just large enough for a small cot.

“It will take me a little time to analyze the data you got. If nothing else, it should allow me to find another rip with the negative time properties that I need.’”

Eobard sat Jaime down on the cot and pointed out a sleeping bag and pillow.

“So now, you should rest.”

With that Eobard left, closing the door behind him and throwing the room into complete darkness. But even when they were alone the Scarab did not remove their armor.

_{We should leave now while the Eobard Thawne is preoccupied.}_

Jaime shook his head and did not get up.

“We have to stop the Reach.”

_{The Eobard Thawne cannot be trusted.}_

“I think that was a joke,” Jaime said, thinking back to the comment that he couldn’t let Jaime die _yet._

_{I have translated his voice from our return trip . “Dammit I thought this would be the day I eliminated the Blue Beetle once and for all”}_

Jaime could feel his heart pound again. It would be so easy to follow the Scarab’s advice and run. Hide behind Superman or the Flash. They would have no reason to believe that the Reach apocalypse was not averted. They would have no reason to see Eobard as anything other than a kidnapper. But Jaime knew better. He couldn’t just sit back and let his little sister Milagro grow up to become a slave to the Reach.

“No,” he said, both to himself and the Scarab. “If it’s within my power, I have to stop the Reach. You heard him, somehow the Reach still win. Somehow they come back.”

 _{Or he comes from an alternative dimension linked by the Bleed}_ the Scarab stated flatly, _{You have no obligation to stop them there.}_

The Scarab’s suggestion was a relief. If true, it meant that Jaime’s family, friends, and future were safe for the Reach. “Still, somewhere out there the Reach are hurting people. Because of me. It’s within my power to do something, so I have to try. I can’t just run away.”

_{I won’t let him hurt you.}_

Despite everything, Jaime smiled.

“I know, _hermano_. I won’t let the Reach use you either.”

 _{Use us,}_ The Scarab corrected instantly.

* * *

 

Jaime wasn’t quite sure when he had drifted off or how long he slept but the next thing that he knew the Scarab was awakening him.

_{Unstable negative temporal abnormality detected. If <you> wish to collect data we must hurry.} _

Jaime swung his legs off the cot, flinching at the metallic clang that was made when they hit the wall. Still that didn’t slow him down. He stood facing the door, the faceplate of his armor only inches from it. He was relieved to find that the door unlocked.

“I think Eobard is starting to trust us.”

 _{Or the Eobard Thawne trusts his ability to kill us,}_ the Scarab responded flatly.

Jaime gave a half hearted laugh and crossed the hall. He hesitated at the door to the lab. Instead of opening the door he knocked.

There was no response.

Slowly he pushed the lab door open.

“Eobard?”

Only the Scarab responded.

_{The Eobard Thawne is out of range of our sensors.}_

“And you're not going to recommend running?”

_{Due to electromagnetic and dimensional interference, our sensor range is far too limited to be sure that we could safely escape considering the Eobard Thawne’s speed.}_

The Scarab waited a beat before adding _{Also <you> desire to stay.} _

Despite everything, Jaime smiled.

He made his way over to the computer connected to the portal to the Bleed. With the Scarab’s help, it was easy enough to open the doors.

That was when Eobard’s voice came over the comm that Jaime had forgotten about.

“ _What do you think you’re doing kid?”_

“Scarab found the right kind of distortion,” Jaime said.

“ _You have the absolute worst timing,”_ Eobard replied, and Jaime could hear the annoyance in his voice. “ _Wait until I finish with Sportsmaster.”_

“Sorry sir, but we don’t know how long it will last.”

Jaime stepped forward into the Bleed. The Scarab did not bother translating the screamed response.

The Bleed wasn’t any easier to understand the second time. However, passing the control to the Scarab was. So while the Scarab was performing thousands of micro-corrections to keep them stable, Jaime could appreciate the view a little more. And while he wasn’t exactly sure what he was looking at, when he saw colors and shapes glitching backwards like a bad video game render, he assumed that he was looking at the temporal rift.

Based on the attention that the Scarab was paying it, Jaime figured that he was correct. They maneuvered around the rift, the Scarab carefully maintaining their distance while continuously collecting data.

Lacking anything better to do while the Scarab worked, Jaime read over the incoming data. Most of it went by too quickly for Jaime to make heads or tails of, but one thing really stuck out as being odd.

“ _Grappling hook trajectory data?”_ Jaime couldn’t help but ask aloud. Although aloud wasn’t quite the right word, since while the Scarab was in control he couldn’t actually speak, only think loudly.

 _{I can collect that if <you> desire.} _The Scarab said.

Jaime didn’t have time to get confused over the Scarab’s response, since the next instant they were no longer at the edge of the rift but in the center of it.

Jaime could feel his body twisting, jumping, glitching, in ways that did not hurt, but were decidedly not normal. It would have been almost relaxing in its own strange way had the Scarab not been freaking out. Data ran past him faster than he had ever before seen it go.

“ _Can you get us out of here?”_

The Scarab didn’t respond. But Jaime could feel their fear.

“ _What about the trajectory data?”_

_{Not yet collected, no time between request and rift collapse.}_

“ _We already have it,”_ Jaime said.

The Scarab fell silent, and a moment later they raised their right hand and fired the grappling hook. It seemed to last forever watching that straight shot curve and glitch. But nothing seemed to happen, even after it had disappeared from sight.

_{Sending corrected data}_

Nothing changed.

_{Sending corrected data}_

Jaime could feel the vibration in the line. Like it had pinged off of something.

_{Sending corrected data}_

Jaime’s entire body jerked forward. The force of the line concentrated in his right arm. The armor stretched, tore, and the bone within snapped. He and the Scarab screamed as one. He and the Scarab reached out and caught the line in their left hand.

They held on. Several times the scarab attempted to fly them forward, to relieve the pressure on his right arm. But moving forward seemed to be impossible, each correction causing them to pull against the line more.

Jaime could feel their left hand slide down the line. He could hear the scraping of metal on metal. They lost millimeters at a time until his left hand was pressed against his right and a new slew of white hot pain signals threatened to overwhelm them both.

His next sensation was that of speed and then of a sudden stop.

Jaime lay on his back. His heart pounded. His arm throbbed. At even the barest thought of moving his stomach turned, and every single one of his muscles protested.

And through all of that Jaime could feel Eobard’s angry glare, even before he spoke.

“I told you to wait.”

Jaime knew that the reason this happened was that the distortion he found had collapsed. He knew that if he had waited that it would have been gone, and the Scarab had no idea how long it would take for another one to appear. He knew this, but all Jaime had the energy to say was, “But-”

“Enough. You took a stupid risk and put everything I’ve worked for in jeopardy.”

Jaime pried his eyes open. It was exhausting to focus on Eobard, especially when he seemed to be blurring around the edges. But he didn’t feel he had a choice.

He missed the relative safety of the Bleed.

“Sorry,” he whispered, less out of actual remorse and more in an attempt to defuse the situation. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not good enough,” Eobard responded quickly, his angry face seeming to take up all of Jaime’s vision.

“The distortion was collapsing.” Jaime’s voice was soft, but Eobard’s scowl still deepened. So Jaime’s changed tactics. “I-I didn’t think your past, my present, could change until I got the data.”

“Don’t you understand anything?” Eobard spat out. “Since it couldn’t account for paradoxes, Allen’s machine made a parallel dimension. The second he arrived you were no longer in my past. There is no time loop, no temporal anomaly dictating that you have to live. So let me make myself clear. The only reason that you are still here is because I think that you might be useful. Another stunt like that and I will know that you aren’t. Understand?”

Eobard roughly pulled Jaime up to a sitting position. And all Jaime could focus on was the feeling of Eobard’s hands on his armor. Even after they were removed the lump that had formed in his throat and his pounding heart made it impossible to look directly at Eobard when he spoke.

“Yes sir.”

Eobard moved away from Jaime and nodded. But before Jaime could take a sigh of relief Eobard spoke again.

“Also, take off the armor.”

Jaime didn’t need the Scarab’s multitude of warnings to know that that was a bad idea. Although that didn’t stop the Scarab from reminding him that with the armor he had a couple of seconds to react if Eobard started trying to phase a hand into him, without the armor he’d just be dead.

“Now, boy.”

Jaime brought his uninjured arm up in an appeasing motion.

“Let me, please, just let me upload the data,” he said.

“What data?” Eobard asked. He watched Jaime closely, eyebrows raised.

“From today,” Jaime answered, too nervous to realize what he said was obvious until after he said it.

“I already have Bleed data and the temporal rip data from your trip yesterday to examine.”

“This one’s better” Jaime said quickly. “It went the other way. You know, in time.”

“You got me data from a negative temporal rip?”

“Yes sir. As much as I could before it collapsed.”

Eobard smiled. And Jaime felt like he could breathe again. Normally, it would only take seconds for the Scarab to upload the data, but today the loading bar on the computer inched up one percent at a time.

“Scarab?” Jaime breathed, not daring to speak any louder and attract Eobard’s attention again.

 _{Energy reserves are down to critical levels,}_ the Scarab stated with an almost apologetic tone. _{Restoring them requires time.}_

“Minutes, days, or months?” Jaime asked.

 _{Days,}_ the Scarab answered, _{if power regeneration and armor repair is prioritized.}_

Jaime nodded, and the Scarab continued talking, _{Defence, metabolic compensation, accelerated healing will be sub-optimal.}_

Jaime’s hand went to his broken arm. The Scarab had already set it, and besides he had had a broken bone or two before the Scarab came into his life.

“I’ll be okay.”

Jaime could feel the Scarab disagree with him.

_{If you do not desire to remove the armor, fleeing would be our greatest chance of success, as there is a non-zero probability that we could reach a zeta tube with our remaining energy.}_

Jaime shook his head. It was nice that the Scarab gave him a second option, even if they both could tell that it was a longshot. Besides, Jaime wanted to see this through, and it was a little less scary to remove the armor when Eobard wasn’t mad.

When the data upload finished, the armor retracted. Jaime gasped when the lab’s cold air hit his broken arm.

“Go rest,” Eobard said without looking up from the new data, “You’ve got time. I don’t want you to even think about approaching the Bleed or using the armor until I say so. Do you understand?”

“Yes sir.”

Jaime rose slowly. His left hand pressed against the floor and the wall to help him keep his balance. He used the long pocket at the front of his hoodie as a makeshift sling for his right arm.

Each step seemed to require Jaime’s full concentration. But he did eventually make it to his cot without falling.

He didn’t take off his shoes or his hoodie. He didn’t even try to get in the sleeping bag. He just laid on top of it with his right arm propped up on the pillow. He expected to fall asleep immediately. But the adrenaline ebbing from his system meant that he was fully aware of his throbbing arm. And on top of that, there was a nagging feeling unease, both of which worked together to keep him awake and staring into the darkness of the room.

_{Apologies.}_

“For what?” Jaime whispered. “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

_{Incorrect. I had a choice. I chose to let you get hurt instead of continuing to correct the trajectory data.}_

“You got us out. We’re both alive and safe. So you took the right action.”

Jaime was paraphrasing things that his father would mention about his time at war. If felt like the appropriate angle to approach the Scarab with.

But the Scarab still wasn’t convinced. Instead of arguing with Jaime, they sent images, taken from medical literature from across the globe and across the universe.

“I’m pretty sure this isn’t quite as serious. Uncomfortable, yes. But dude, I’m gonna live I promise.”

The Scarab simply played more images, infection, internal bleeding, loss of limb, shock, death.

“You trust my mom right?”

_{Affirmative.}_

“Ok, good. So quick story about the last time I broke an arm.”

_{The fight against Tommy Terror six weeks ago?}_

“It was broken?” Jaime asked, but the second it was out of his mouth he knew the answer. Yes, it was and the Scarab had healed him.

“Guess so. Well then this is the last time I broke my arm before meeting you. I was skateboarding with Tye and I fell. Tye and I went to mom’s hospital, waited for her to get a spare moment and come out. When she did she took one look at us, assured me that Tye could spend the night as long as homework got done and left. We had to flag down a second nurse to go back and get her.”

Jaime gave a short soft laugh and winced when it caused his arm to move.

“Yeah, I’m going to be sore and uncomfortable right now. But I promise, in the long run I’m going to be fine.”

Jaime could feel the vague feeling of worry and unease slip away, and he was left with only the feeling of dull pain in his arm. A feeling that was easily overcome by his exhaustion.

  



	3. Apologies

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Special thanks to Hedgi who helped me greatly in the crafting of insults. 
> 
> Chapter warning: depictions of metal abuse

When Jaime awoke, it wasn’t due to his arm but rather his stomach. He’d forgotten that he hadn’t had anything to eat since he got here. Between the activity and the Scarab’s metabolic compensation, it had slipped his mind. But now he was realizing that this could be a problem.

Still, Jaime waited to leave the room. He lay still and listened to the Scarab chatter about current repair status and the level of power regeneration. They were up to 12.7%. Jaime knew this was going to be a long couple of days.

He waited until he was completely sure that he could not get back to sleep, and completely sure that there was nothing in the room that could distract him.

Then he slowly sat up, positioning his arm in the hoodie pocket so that it was as comfortable as possible. He reached out, found the doorknob in the dark and slowly turned it. 

He was pleased to see that it was not locked.

The hallway was empty. Jaime made his way over to the lab door. His plan was to ask Eobard where the food was. To remind him that he needed to eat to rebuild strength and be helpful. But when he reached the door he froze. 

The thought of how Eobard would respond to the intrusion kept him rooted to the spot. He just couldn’t risk it. 

Besides there was probably something obvious that he had missed. So he checked behind the other doors to the hallway. One led to a bathroom, which was a relief to find, one to Eobard’s room, which Jaime didn’t dare to search, and one led outside, which was all snow and ice. The rest led to storage closets packed with chemicals and spare parts but no food. 

Still, with a speedster’s metabolism Eobard had to be eating. There had to be some food around, although the more Jaime thought about it the more he came to the conclusion that it must be close to Eobard. 

“Scarab, can our scanners tell if there is food in the lab?”

_ {Biomass is detected. Exact analysis is unavailable.} _

Jaime nodded, that was all the confirmation that he needed.

Slowly, carefully, Jaime made his way over to the lab door. 

Slowly, carefully, he pushed it open. As it inched open, Jaime scanned the lab for anything that looked like a fridge or cupboard. But all he saw was Eobard staring, glaring directly at him.

Jaime backed away from the door. He backed up all the way to his cot, never taking his eyes off the door.

It was several hours before Eobard left his work. And Jaime let out a breath he didn't know he was holding when Eobard didn’t stop to confront him but instead ran out of the Scarab’s tracking range.

Jaime only hesitated a second before he stood and made his way back to the lab.

_ {Caution. Sensor range is limited. I will not be able to provide warning when the Eobard Thawne returns.} _

“I know,” Jaime answered quietly.

He knew Eobard wasn’t there and could in no way hear him, but he had just passed the threshold to the lab. 

_ {Self defence options will be severely limited.} _

“I’ll make this fast then,” Jaime said. “Where’s the biomass?” 

Jaime followed the Scarab’s directions. He knew that if some food just disappeared and Eobard noticed it then he would be risking Eobard’s wrath. That wrath could potentially be lessened by leaving a note or something explaining that he needed the energy to heal so that he could be useful. But a note would guarantee that Eobard found out.

The decision was moot once Jaime located the biomass. Which was not food but rather a yellow semi-transparent goo that was held in several test tubes. 

“I’m not _that_ hungry.”

_ {Apologies; there is no other biomass within range of our scanners.} _

Jaime could feel the frustration in the Scarab’s tone. Jaime didn’t blame them, feeling useless, unable to help was awful. So Jaime forced a wry smile.

“I _really_ hope you’re not suggesting I eat that, because it looks like something from the back of the teams refrigerator, or one of Robin’s experiments.”

_ {Negative, that would be ill-advised.} _

Jaime laughed and he could feel the Scarab’s frustration abate.

_ {However I am glad tha-} _

The Scarab switched to defensive mode as soon as the world around them began to blur. Jaime could feel his skin tingle in preparation for their armor. But it didn’t form. Partly because of energy constraints and partly due to the fact that Eobard had already dropped them on their cot.

“What were you doing?”

Eobard’s voice was low and angry. Jaime didn’t look at him. He focused on the edge of the cot. He told himself that it was because the Scarab would have the best chance of tracking Eobard without visual data adding to the confusion. He told himself that it wasn’t because he was scared.

“I. I just. I’m sorry. I was just-”

“Don’t do it again. Understand?”

Before Jaime had finished nodding, Eobard had already returned to his work. 

Jaime sunk back into the cot, shaking. His door and the lab door were both left open. So Jaime could watch Eobard work just as easily as Eobard could turn his head and watch him.

Jaime didn’t dare move. And as the second became hours he slowly slumped forward, curling around his broken arm that was pressed against his stomach. He didn't know how long he stayed that way, listening to Eobard work. He didn't relax enough to sleep but nevertheless startled when Eobard approached.

“I've got to leave for a bit, what is it going to take to get you to behave while I'm gone?”

“Where are you...”

Jaime’s voice was soft, and he was blinking hard.

Eobard shrugged. 

“Just a food run,” he said.

Eobard went on to explain in detail how speedsters have a higher metabolism than normal humans and thus require more food. But Jaime wasn’t really listening. Instead he was registering disappointment from the first statement.

“So there’s nothing to eat in the lab?”

“Sorry kiddo.” Eobard said lighting ruffling Jaime’s hair. “But all the hard work I do while you rest means that I get a few minutes out of the lab.”

Eobard’s hand slid off Jaime’s head and onto his shoulder. Which Eobard squeezed just hard enough to be uncomfortable.

“So what will it take to make sure you behave without adult supervision?”

Jaime didn’t dare pull back. So he held as still as he could, mouth dry, words stuck in the back of his throat. However, it was his growling stomach that eventually spoke for him.

Eobard stepped back and laughed.

“Looks like I’ve been a bad host. I guess you need to eat too.”

“You haven’t,”Jaime said softly. He wasn’t going to risk making Eobard mad by agreeing with him even with silence.

Eobard smiled.

“Well then,” he said, “if you do what I say, and keep out of your armor and trouble while I’m gone. I’ll bring back some fast food. Deal?”

Jaime nodded. Eobard left. And Jaime slumped back on the cot.

He tried to relax. Although he had stopped shaking, his heart was still pounding when Eobard returned.

Eobard made a stop in the lab before returning to Jaime’s cot. He was smiling just a little too wide for Jaime to feel comfortable.

“Come on kid,” he said, pulling Jaime up by his shoulder. He kept his hand on Jaime’s shoulder and guided him to the lab. “I was thinking about what you said and well...”

Eobard pushed open the door and proudly gestured to the person that he had brought back from his trip: Kaldur’ahm. 

Kaldur was disarmed, with his hands tied behind his back. Jaime guessed that they must have been attached to something. But nevertheless he seemed to have already overcome the disorientation associated with being grabbed by a speedster. 

“This is an apology,” Eobard said, pushing Jaime forward. “You can finish him off first and then have the take-out I brought back. Sound fair?”

“No. I can’t I-”

“Why?”

With that word, Eobard was in front of Jaime. His eyes were narrowed. Jaime felt his breath catch before Eobard suddenly beamed.

“Of course. You need your armor to do this. Well, then I give you my permission to use your arm.”

Eobard reached out and pulled Jaime right arm out of his hoodie. Jaime ground his teeth against the white hot pain in his broken limb as Eobard pulled it forward and mimicked a cut across Kaldur’s neck.

“One arm blade should be all you need.”

“Or,” Eobard continued looking at Jaime’s queasy expression, “you can use your plasma cannon if you don’t want to get dirty.”

“ _I was under the impression that hagfish didn’t have legs. I suppose that I was mistaken. Because only a spineless muck-sucker would get a boy to do their dirty work. Face me like a man.”_

Jaime couldn’t help but flinch at Kaldur’s words. There was no way that Eobard would let them go despite the meek and pleading tone that they were spoken in.

But Eobard smiled and released Jaime. 

“Look at him, begging for his life,” Eobard laughed while Jaime sank to his knees, curled over his arm, and fought back nausea.

“ _It appears he cannot speak my native language,”_ Kaldur said in the same meek tone. “ _but I believe that you can understand me.”_

Jaime tried to nod. But he was still shaking, still tensed and hunched over his arm, taking short shallow breaths trying to get the pain under control. He could feel the Scarab in the back of his mind running through options available, but with their current energy reserves, they weren’t a lot.

Eobard ran out of patience.

“Come on boy,” he said in a soft voice. “If you can’t do this then I will. Slowly and painfully.”

The sound of Eobard’s vibrating hand pulled Jaime’s attention away from his arm.

“No,” he almost shouted, putting himself between Eobard and Kaldur.

He took a breath and looked Kaldur in the eye. 

“I can,” Jaime said before facing Eobard again. “I just need a moment.”

Eobard stopped vibrating his hand.

“Don’t take too long. My food is getting cold,” he said.

Softly, and at the same time as Eobard, Kaldur spoke.

“ _Are you injured?”_

Jaime nodded. He looked at Kaldur for a moment before starting to slowly speak.

“ _ My arm is broken,”  _ he said, silently thanking the Scarab for translating his words,  “ _ And my armor’s energy reserves are-” _

“You speak Atlantean?” Eobard asked, cutting him off.

“Yes. I mean the the suit-”

Eobard’s eyes narrowed. And when he spoke his voice was low and hard.

“What did I tell you about using it? Besides it’s rude to speak around me like that.”

Jaime flinched. Kaldur spoke quickly.

“ _Tell him that that taunting me in my own language puts you in a position of power.”_

Jaime bowed his head slightly. 

“I’m sorry sir,” he said. “It’s just. I just thought that showing I know his language would show my power.”

Eobard relaxed. “Understandable.”

“ _A fight is unwise. Can you flee?”_

“ _To where? It is all snow and ice-”_

“ _If you are taunting, speak confidently, shoulders back.”_

Jaime followed Kaldur’s advice and continued speaking with force.

“ _ Besides I have to finish the work here. I have to help or else in his time the  _ Reach  _ will win...” _

Jaime trailed off. He had heard the word Reach clear as day. Because of course there wasn’t a unique word for them. So of course Eobard would be able to understand it. He should have realized that by the way that Kaldur had avoided saying ‘Atlantean’ earlier that it would be an issue.

Jaime held his breath and looked at Eobard.

But when Eobard spoke his voice was light, almost proud.

“Good. He might not have struck a blow during the raid but it was his team. And he does need to answer for that and the rest of the things he did while working for the Reach.”

“ _ We promised no more fake deaths,”  _ Kaldur said. His voice was still meek and soft, but Jaime could see the conviction in his eyes.  “ _ However, I trust you with a controlled strike-” _

“ _It’s too risky, I don’t know what he’ll do after-”_

“ _That is a risk I am willing to take.”_

With that response Jaime forgot his act. Speaking softly instead of the forced conviction that he needed.

“ _I’m not.”_

“ _I never want to leave a teammate in enemy hands again.”_ Kaldur said. His voice was still soft but Jaime could hear the steel just beneath the surface. “ _But if I have to. I am going to do everything in my power to make sure that they are in the best and safest position possible.”_

Jaime closed his eyes. He took a breath and steeled himself. The team needed Kaldur. He had gone deep undercover, lived with the Light, and came out even more committed to his team and to protecting the people of Earth. And with the implications of Bart’s prophecy, well, he trusted Kaldur far more than himself.

So Jaime turned, faced Eobard and spread his arms wide.

“I can’t,” he started, adrenaline boosting his confidence. “We can’t kill him.”

Eobard frowned.

“Why not? He carried out orders from the Reach.”

Jaime pushed aside his initial thought of ‘so did I’.

“But not anymore,” Jaime argued. “He betrayed them-”

“He is a liar who would say anything in an attempt to get his life spared.”

Jaime didn’t move. 

Eobard’s frown deepened.

“What about your family? You won’t even finish him off for them?”

Jaime flinched, but he didn’t move. 

“He’s not a threat. If I allowed him to die like this... My family wouldn’t want that.”

Eobard didn’t move. He still glowered at both Jaime and Kaldur. So Jaime continued.

“ Please. I want to do whatever it takes to stop Blue Beetle and the Reach in your timeline. I’ll do anything, I can’t stand knowing that they win there. But this,” Jaime gestured to Kaldur, “this won’t hurt  _ them. _ ”

Eobard sighed hard. “There is something that I can give you instead of this.”

“Okay.”

Before he had time to finish the word,  Eobard and Kaldur were gone.

Jaime hugged his arm to his chest, watching the direction that he imagined that they had gone intently. 

“Scarab?”

_ {Yes?} _

“Did I do the right thing?”


	4. The Rescue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conner, Zatanna, and Bart engage in a rescue mission to save Jaime Reyes after Kaldur is is left by Eobard in the middle of the Sahara Desert.

One second Kaldur was in the middle of a lab, trying to figure out what, if anything, he could do to help Jaime defuse the situation with Eobard. The next he was moving at superspeed before being flung face first into hot dry sand.

He pushed himself to his feet as fast as he could. All he could see was sand and a midday sun beating down on him with its overwhelming heat.

At the moment though, his only worry was that he was completely alone.

And the only relief was that for the first time since Zoom had taken him, he could hear voices on his comm.

Mal’s in particular.

“ _Kaldur! I’m sending Flash out-”_

“Belay that. Send Flash to the Reyes residence immediately.”

“ _Understood.”_

There was a few seconds of silence on the line. There was nothing but large sand dunes and sky. And with the sun almost directly overhead there was no shade from the dunes. No shelter from the sun at all.

“ _I’ve also dispatched a team with the Bioship to your location. If you want I can send them to the Reyes household. They take over for Flash, and he gets you out of the Sahara sooner.”_

“Negative. Zoom threatened them. And while he may not follow through we cannot take that risk. I will be fine until the Bioship arrives.”

Kaldur could already feel sweat beading at the back of his neck and his gills start to dry and crack uncomfortably. But he had survived a day in the desert before with no planning, preparation, or memory. So an hour or less he could manage. Not that he wouldn’t be grateful for some water once the bioship arrived.

“ _So if Zoom threatened them, Jaime must be alive.”_

“He is.”

Kaldur sat down to conserve energy, and the movement set his head throbbing. He waited a moment for the pain to subside before speaking again.

“Call Kid Flash, Superboy, and Zatanna. I want a rescue team ready to go.”

“ _You know where he is?”_

“Not yet. But we will find him.”

It took another twelve minutes for the Bioship to arrive and an additional thirty-two minutes to get back to the Watchtower.  

It took three more hours for Mal to finish compiling atmospheric abnormalities and produce a map of probable locations for where Zoom was holding Jaime.

It took Mal one minute to remove the majority of the locations that could be explained by Bart, Barry and Jay.

It took Kaldur one second to narrow the remaining locations to one, as the location in the Arctic was the only one that could have the snow and ice described by Jaime.

It took fifty-seven minutes of attempts to realize that the area in the arctic was too large and sensors too sparse to allow them to pinpoint a location.

It took eighty minutes to reach out to all agencies that had scientific outposts there to inquire if they had detected anything abnormal.

...

It took three days for the UN to respond with the statement that the scientists at their base had been unexpectedly relocated by an unknown force.

* * *

 

The loss of radio communication was a sure sign to Conner that they were on the right track. Which was comforting since the early night and buffeting snow filled wind meant that there wasn’t really any other confirmation. Conner guided Sphere lower, and at the loss in altitude Bart shouted above the wind.

“You found it already?”

“No.”

“We’re close,” Zatanna said, expanding on Conner’s answer, “but if Zoom is using Apokoliptic tech to hold Jaime, it could detect Sphere’s approach.”

“And ruin our surprise, got it.”

Bart jumped out of Sphere the second she touched the ground.

“Really going to miss the climate control though.”

Zatanna followed him out. She smiled, raised one hand and said, “ _Noitcetorp morf eht stnemele._ ”

“Or not,” Bart corrected, when the wind and cold were rebuffed from them by a slightly luminous magical barrier.

Conner left Sphere last. He patted her twice before she rolled up to wait for his call.

“So now where?” Bart asked.

Conner and Zatanna exchanged a look that went unnoticed by the speedster. The research station was set up around an abnormality caused by the MFD device that Wally had died to stop. And even though they could use the radio and other sensor interference to track the research station, neither one of the older heros wanted to bring up the loss of Wally to Bart before what was already an emotionally taxing mission.

Neither one spoke but when Conner started moving, Bart got his answer.

The rest of the walk was in silence, and ended when Conner stopped, turned around, and circled an unremarkable snow drift. The research station was visible on the other side.

Conner held up his hand. Zatanna and Bart waited in tense silence as Conner pressed his ear to the door.

He could hear two heartbeats inside. Conner held up two fingers to let the team know. He continued to listen.

“Still eight seconds?” A voice that Conner recognized as Zoom from the Godfrey incident asked.

“Yes sir.”

Jaime’s reply was soft. Between the tone and spike in heart rate, Conner could tell that Jaime was nervous.

Zoom sighed.

“I’ve got three more trial strains. The R-3-14 strain can survive in a more acidic solution which should help with the initial breach, or we can start tests on the new R-1-6 mutations, for a more shotgun approach?”

Jaime hesitated before responding to Zoom’s question.

“Actually, sir, I was hoping that we could take a break.”  

“Take a break? You do understand that I can’t start work on new strains until I actually know how these work.”

“Yes, I just-”

“Just nothing. Do you actually understand how serious the Reach invasion is, or is this all a game to you?”

Conner grimaced when he heard Jaime stutter in response. Conner didn’t need to hear Jaime’s racing heartbeat to know that he was terrified.

The next thing that he heard was Zatanna’s curse and a third heartbeat appear on the other side of the door.

Conner knew without looking that Bart had entered the research station. And he knew that Bart wasn’t planning on following Kaldur’s assignment to calmly explain that anything Blue Beetle had done had been due to Reach control, and he was free now.

He could hear glass shattering and Zoom shouting as he stepped back from the door. So much for plan A. Apparently Zatanna had the same idea for as soon as he stepped back she shouted.

“ _Nepo eht rood._ ”

The door swung open and Conner ran down a hall and into a lab. He quickly took stock of the situation. Jaime stood slightly crouched next to a table covered in broken glass and yellow goop. He only had armor covering his right arm. It had one large hole burned through to skin, and dozens of small craters in a splash pattern. The craters in the armor were bubbling and steaming and Conner didn’t think it would be long before skin was also visible through them.

But the biggest threat was Zoom, who was standing near Jaime. Even with the distortion caused by Zoom’s vibration, Conner could tell that he was mad, and focused on Bart, who was across the room slowly picking himself up.

“You incompetent fool. Do you realized how much work you just ruined?” Zoom questioned, taking one slow deliberate step towards Bart.

Conner jumped into action.

Zoom, almost lazily, avoided Conner’s first three punches. He smirked, and started what was surely going to be a snide remark.

But by then Zatanna had finished saying, “ _Wols ruo s’ymene noitcaer emit_.”

And Conner’s fourth punch hit Zoom in the jaw. And sent him stumbling backwards.

Zoom narrowed his eyes. He wiped his already healed split lip with his thumb. And then he vibrated his hands.

Conner rushed forward. With Zatanna’s spell still in effect, he was able to easily dodge each vibrating punch and get within Zoom’s personal space.

It was only after Zoom brought his vibrating hands down over Conner’s ears that Conner realized this was exactly what Zoom had wanted.

Conner fell onto his knees, dazed by the sudden sound and vertigo that Zoom’s attack produced. Black Canary was going to be so disappointed in him.

It took precious seconds for Conner to shake off his daze. And when he did he saw Jaime, fully armored, standing between him and Zoom. Jaime was facing Zoom, but his arms were flung wide, no weapon or shield was formed.

When Zoom spoke his voice was low and angry. “What have I told you about wearing the armor?”

Conner could hear Jaime’s pulse race.

“I-we-we’ll need it for what we are going to do.”

“And that is?”

“Fight-stop your Blue Beetle.”

Zoom paused. “Yes, that could work,” he said thoughtfully. “If you take down the armor or provide a distraction, I can go for the heart.” He then grinned wide, threw an arm around Jaime’s neck and said, “Come on boy, the future awaits.”

Conner pushed himself to his feet. He was focused solely on Jaime, on how even through the armor, Conner could see the fear in his eyes. But before he could call out, Bart did.

Zoom turned towards Bart, grin completely gone.

“Bring us along,” Zatanna cut in, getting Zoom to focus on her and the stone scarab that she had in her hand. “I’ve got the ritual prepped for freeing -”

Zoom laughed. Conner assumed that he was going to parrot Zatanna’s earlier warning, that without the power boost provided by the temple the ritual might not be strong enough to fight off direct Reach control. Not that it was a problem at the time since it was only a backup in case Zoom caused Jaime to lose control of the scarab, not a plan to fight against an actual Reach controlled Blue Beetle.

Conner was wrong.

“Pathetic,” Zoom said, grabbing the back of Jaime’s neck, “only death will stop him.”

Bart raced towards their location, but both Zoom and Jaime had disappeared before he could reach them.

As a blur, Bart raced through the the entire research station three times before returning to the spot where Jaime and Zoom disappeared. He leaned forward slightly, hands on his knees, breathing heavy.

Conner watched.

Zatanna approached.

“It’s time travel right?” she asked. “So that means that we should have time to study his notes, build another machine and still arrive right when they do.”

Bart nodded.

Conner strode to the door. He was just outside when Bart appeared in front of him. The worried look on Bart’s face made him hesitate long enough for Zatanna to catch up and put her hand on his shoulder.

“I’m just going to get Sphere and report in,” he explained.

“Ok,” Zatanna said, “ _Noitcetorp -_ ”

Zatanna didn’t finish her spell and in a gust of wind the three heroes were gone.

* * *

 

Zoom looked down at the water proof box in front of him. It was identical to the one he had found as a young man. But then again that was because this was going to be the box that he had found.

The box was filled with every scrap of paper directly relating to causality breaking time travel that he could find in this arctic lab. The lab was used by a Zoom outside of his own timeline, who had traveled to a parallel dimension to learn how to break causality, at least according to the notes in this box.

Now based on his memory, there were only two things missing, which Zoom added.

The first was a note in which he wrote the current time, location, and that there were three interlopers that need to be removed.

The second was a beacon with a radio frequency that he always liked to listen for as a young man.

Then he sealed the watertight container, changed date and location information on a futuristic looking device in his hand, and aimed it at the container.

With a squeeze of the trigger the container was gone, and his past assured.

 


	5. Back to the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime arrives in the future with Eobard. And while Eobard works on preparing to over throw the Reach, Jaime has one goal, stop the Blue Beetle. And he tries, but the fight does not go well, and Jaime has to face some very uncomfortable truths.

The time travel and subsequent super speed travel wasn’t all that disorienting, especially when Jaime compared them too his recent adventures in the Bleed. Still Jaime remained sitting, head in his hands, at the new abandoned building that Eobard had brought him to.

No, it wasn’t the rapid travel that had him shaking, but his own adrenalin. Offering to go to the future, being reminded that the only thing that could truly stop Blue Beetle was his death, Jaime couldn’t seem to calm his heart that was pounding in his ears or relieve the sick twisting of his stomach.  

“Hope you’re not having second thoughts, kid.”

Jaime’s head shot up.

“No no, not at all,” he said, his voice only wavering slightly. “I’m just trying to figure out...”

Jaime trailed off. He didn’t even know what he wanted to figure out. It could have been his worry that Eobard was right, as Jaime knew that the only way the Scarab would serve the Reach for decades is if he, the host, wanted to. It could have been the admission that he didn’t actually have a plan for subduing this Blue Beetle, that he had just said what Eobard wanted to hear to stop the fight. It could be-

Eobard laughed, cutting into Jaime’s thoughts.

“Time travel can do that,” he said, smirking. “Start with the simplest question, ‘when’.”

Jaime took the explanation.

“When are we?”

“2056,” Eobard answered. Though the answer was short, it wasn’t snapped, and he seemed to be encouraging Jaime to continue questioning.

“Why then...er... now? If we go farther back wouldn’t it be easier to dislodge the Reach?”

“It would be,” Eobard said, “But Allen is a destructive idiot, as you saw when he destroyed my tests, and thus it isn’t safe to go any further back.”

“But didn’t you also travel to my dimension, what makes Bart’s travel different?”

Jaime almost bit his tongue after that statement. He clenched his fist, sure that Eobard was going to take it as a slight or insult.

“I actually understood all of Meloni’s notes; Bart obviously didn’t,” Eobard said. He hesitated a moment and pulled an old flash drive out of his suit and handed it to Jaime.

“See anything different about ‘Neutron’ before and after 2056?” He asked.

Jaime waited for the Scarab to pull up the relevant photographs before he responded. He saw one from a news report labeled ‘Neutron captured’ showing him wearing prison orange and an inhibitor collar, with a scar over his right eye. The next one the Scarab brought up showed him without the inhibitor collar. And that was not the only thing that was gone.

“The disappearing scar?” He asked.

“And powers,” Eobard added. “Proof of dimensional blowback. Since he was near Bart’s time machine when it left he was affected by the changes that Bart made to your timeline. If he had waited a little longer, taken the time to actually understand Meloni’s notes, he could have traveled without the dimensional blowback, which now makes travel to before 2056 in my timeline impossible.”

“Ahh...” Jaime handed the drive back to Eobard. “Anyone else affected?”

“No. Theoretically the ground and air in the immediate vicinity was affected too, but I doubt that those changes are as obvious.”

“Right. Of course.”

If Blue Beetle wasn’t there then Jaime would be fighting a parallel version of himself, not a future one. However that information didn’t give him a lot of relief. In the end, he guessed it didn’t change that much. He’d still have to steel himself against talk about how the Reach made everything better. He thought that he could. He was sure that he could remember how important freedom was for his little sister, his family, his friends. But something must have made him change his mind, and that unknown worried him.

Still, he wasn’t going to let that worry stop him.

Jaime stood slowly. He took one deep breath once he was up and then spoke.

“I’m ready to go whenever you are.”

“I’m not going anywhere now, I’ve still got work to do.”

“But...”

Eobard frowned at him.

“Did you really think that taking out Blue Beetle was all that needed to be done to free the Earth? No, I’ve got to track and get ready to take out the Ambassador and the rest of the Reach once his protection is gone. I’ve got to make sure that he can’t call for backup from other scarab warriors. I’ve got to mold this world of weak-willed individuals and make them enough of a threat that the Reach cannot return.”

Jaime shrunk away from Eobard’s rant. Of course the Reach would have eventually caught Lex Luthor’s tampering with their ‘suggestibility’ drugs. And of course they would have to worry about retaliation. Still, it was nice to have confirmation that he didn’t have to worry about being double teamed by either Black or Green Beetle. Which made sense, since there was no reason to keep valuable assets on a planet that was already conquered.

“I understand,” Jaime said softly once Eobard fell silent. “Just tell me when you want me to go-”

Eobard glowered at him. “You are not taking out Blue Beetle. Not if you want to get home. You are only taking out the armor long enough me to take out Blue Beetle. Understand?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Now you can go.”

Jaime hesitated.

“How should I-”

“With the communicator, boy, remember?”

Jaime froze.

_{The communication device that we used in the Bleed is still within the armor.}_

At the Scarab’s words, Jaime nodded.

“I’ll call.”

“Good,” Eobard said, his glower disappearing. “Oh, and if you can, try to make sure the scarab sustains minimal damage when you disable the armor. Its power could prove useful to me.”

Jaime could feel a knot form in his stomach. He managed to whisper out ‘I’ll try’ as he all but fled from the lab.

Eobard let him go.

When he got outside the sky was blocked out with ash. The hazy light filtering though made everything seem grey. The building Eobard had claimed was across a street, now cracked with weeds poking their way through, from what appeared to be a strip mall, blasted apart and then left as weeds and fallen ash slowly reclaimed it.

And yet, without Eobard, this place felt liberating. He didn’t see ash, he saw the sun still trying to shine. He didn’t see weeds, he saw plants still growing. And he didn’t see destruction but the tenacity of blue and yellow paint still clinging to bits of broken walls.

He could do this.

With newfound freedom, his wings formed. He flew low and fast, not to a destination, not yet. He, they, just wanted some distance, some room to breathe.

He flew away from the city and into desert. Green and brown blurs passed beneath him. With a little focus he could make some of them out. The skyward reaching yucca, the barrel cacti grouped close, and the lonely creosote bush just to name a few. And in the distance rose mountains. He raced towards them. They grew in the distance as the land below him rolled.

This was the desert he learned to fly in. And he remembered his first flight and first crash with the Scarab. All shaky wings and incredulous questions.

He flew lower, slower before finally landing. It was a real landing this time, not a face first crash into a prickly pear. He couldn’t help but smile.

He sat in the open space by a creosote bush and leaned back on his hands looking up at the gray sky.

“It’s amazing right? These plants are still growing despite everything that happened.”

_{The Kryptonite radiation in the atmosphere is tuned to compensate for the lost solar radiation.}_

“Oh.” Jaime fell silent.

 _{Still it’s primary purpose would have been to make this planet unappealing to Kryptonians. So its aid in the growth of plants is...amazing.}_ The Scarab tentatively parroted Jaime’s word back to him.

Jaime smiled. “Yeah.”

They fell back into an easy silence which Jaime eventually broke.

“I’m not going to hand you -future you- over to Eobard. You know that, right?”

_{That sentiment is appreciated but unnecessary. I would gladly sacrifice myself so that you could return home.}_

“I appreciate the sentiment _hermano_ , but I stand by my statement.” Jaime said. He continued talking once he could feel the disagreement of the Scarab. “Besides he will send us home. The reason he had to bring us was that he couldn’t get through our armor quickly enough. Once we stop this Blue Beetle the fact that he can’t get through our armor quickly enough won’t change will it?”

_{It will not.}_

“So then, he would have to send us home, if only to mitigate the risk we could pose. Right?”

_{Affirmative.}_

Jaime could feel the tension from the Scarab ease, like a slowly relaxing muscle. He looked back up at the gray sky.

“Now, the question is how exactly are we going to find and stop this Blue Beetle.”

_{The amount of Reach technology on this plane makes a simple scan for that ineffective. I have modified the parameters to include proximity to your DNA, but the scan is large and has thus far not yielded any positive results.}_

“Great work,” Jaime said, smiling. “Now all we have to do is figure out a plan for when we find him.”

_{I have considered that as well. I can mimic the Zatanna’s ritual.}_

Jaime’s smile fell. He closed his eyes and thought for a second before gently speaking.

“ _Hermano,_ you and I both know that after 40 years, you would have broken the mode on your own. We both know that the only reason that you would still be working for the Reach was if I-”

_{Not you.}_

Jaime nodded at the correction. “If your host wanted to fight for the Reach.”

_{I do not accept that.}_

“Ok, then please, tell me where my logic is wrong?”

Jaime’s question was soft, begging not accusing. It took over a minute of silence for the Scarab to respond.

_{If the host serves the Reach, we both know what the Eobard’s plan is. I will not aid in the death of Jaime Reyes.}_

“Right,” Jaime said softly. He thought for a moment before continuing. “What about mimicking Green Beetle, just without the secondary link to the Reach? Give you total control instead-”

_{Imprisoning Jaime Reyes is also unacceptable.}_

“But could you do it?” Jaime pressed.

 _{I trust Jaime Reyes,}_ was the Scarab’s only answer. _{I will mimic the Zatanna’s ritual.}_

Jaime pressed his head in his hands. But before he could figure out a counter argument, the Scarab spoke again.

_{Reach technology is incoming.}_

“Blue Beetle?” Jaime asked, quickly standing and facing in the direction that the Scarab indicated.

_{Unknown, scans are still incomplete.}_

Jaime nodded. It only took a few moments for the Reach tech to come into view. Before Jaime could see the details that differentiated a Scarab warrior from a drone or a ship, he could see the color. Blue, the same blue that lurked at the back of his thoughts whenever the Scarab spoke. And he knew who it was.

Jaime watched, crouched low as the other Blue Beetle streaked across the sky towards him. His heart pounded as the figure just seemed to keep getting bigger, and bigger, and bigger. When Blue Beetle finally landed the ground shook. This Beetle towered over him, a single arm was practically the size of Jaime’s entire body.

Jaime took an unconscious step back.

_{To adequately reproduce the Zatanna’s ritual, we need to make contact with the armor.}_

Jaime nodded, took a deep breath, and didn’t take another step back.

Blue Beetle eyed him impassively. “The Ambassador didn’t tell me that he had called another warrior.”

“That’s because he didn’t,” Jaime answered. “I’m here to kick him and the rest of the Reach the hell off of my planet.”

Blue Beetle’s armor moved, and for a split second Jaime thought that he was taking it off . But that moment ended when Blue Beetle’s eyes narrowed, and he launched himself at Jaime.

In the half second it took Blue Beetle to reach Jaime, Jaime had pulled up his shield and planted his feet. His goal was to use Blue Beetle’s momentum against him, deflecting him with his shield and then grabbing hold of his back before he could stop and turn around.

However Blue Beetle was not deflected by Jaime’s shield. Rather, the shield crumpled like a tin can from the impact.

Before Jaime could react, a punch to his side sent him flying. The Scarab deployed their wings but before they could be used, Jaime landed hard on his shoulder and hip, pulverizing a cacti and sending bits of plant, dirt, and stone flying.

He could see Blue Beetle’s feet approaching, and he had to force himself to lay still instead of curling up to protect his stomach.

His fingers elongated into claws and he waited until Beetle was on top of him. He grabbed a hold of Beetle’s knee with his clawed hands, and curled around his leg so that contact could be maintained.

_{Beginning mimicry.}_

Beetle shook his leg and Jaime hung on against the rapidly changing directions. To Jaime it felt like he was holding on for hours, but it was only about a minute before Blue Beetle pulled his leg back and kicked as hard as he could.

For a second time, Jaime flew into the air. But this time his wings were already out and he was able to catch himself before landing.

He flew up, configuring his arm into a plasma cannon to fire on the raging Blue Beetle.

“It didn’t work, did it?”

_{Negative.}_

“Because Blue Beetle is already free, right?”

The scarab delayed their response before finally saying, _{I am reanalyzing the data. My mimicry must be flawed.}_

Jaime didn’t respond. He was too busy shooting at the massive rock Blue Beetle had hurled his way. It eventually exploded into nothing more than pebbles and dust.

But not before Blue Beetle jumped.

Jaime could see the crater in the ground caused by the force of hit. He could see Blue Beetle approaching, much faster than he could fly up.

So he didn’t try to fly away.

Instead he retracted his wings and plasma cannon. He grabbed the arm Blue Beetle was trying to punch him with and held on with both hands.

At the apex of his jump Blue Beetle swung his arm down, and put Jaime between himself and the ground.

Jaime did not let go, even as gravity accelerated both Beetles towards the Earth.

He closed his eyes and whisper, “Come on Scarab, you can do this. I trust you.”

If the Scarab answered, Jaime didn’t hear. He was distracted by the impact with the ground. The land cratered beneath him. Dirt flew into the air and Jaime lost his breath from the impact but not his grip. Even the crushing weight on his stomach didn’t get him to let go.

Jaime opened his eyes. He saw Blue Beetle pressing down on his stomach with one foot. As he looked up, he could see Blue Beetle leaning over him, watching him with a sinister smile, and pulling back his free fist for a punch.

Blue Beetle swung down. Fist transforming into blade, but Jaime did not let go to defend himself.

Again, Jaime braced for impact.

But the tip of the sword missed him. Instead it dug into the ground to the right of Jaime’s neck. So close that the flat of the blade pushed against the armor over Jaime’s neck.

Jaime still held on.

_{Initiating plan B, control transfer protocol.}_

Jaime held on. He could worry later that the Scarab resorting to mimicking Green Beetle’s strategy meant that he really did join the Reach. Now all he felt was the need to hold on and confidence that this future Scarab was enough like his Scarab for this to work.

_{Control transfer at 5%.}_

The blade by Jaime’s neck snapped. Blue Beetle brought back his fist for a second punch.

Jaime held on.

_{Control transfer at 10%.}_

Blue Beetle’s fist reformed into a blade as he swung it down a second time.

Jaime closed his eyes, braced for the impact.

But he still held on.

_{Control transfer at 15%.}_

The pressure, the pain, enveloped the center of his chest in waves of agony. Reflexively, he gasped and his whole body jolted at the fresh wave of pain.

Blue Beetle’s arm slipped through his grasp.

Panic replaced pain, and Jaime flailed. His fingertip brushed against the foot on his stomach. He heard the crack of armor, and then the foot was gone.

Jaime craned his eyes open. But by the time he could see, Blue Beetle was nowhere in sight. He moved his arms placing in preparation to push himself up. But the Scarab interrupted him.

_{Lie still.}_

Jaime stopped trying to push himself up. His hands flew towards but didn’t touch the blade still embedded in his chest. Through his chest, as he could feel it pinning him to the ground.

“How bad?”

 _{The damage from the blade is minimal.}_ Before Jaime could question how that was, the Scarab showed him a model of the blade, and how it had reformed within him to protect vital organs and transfer the force of the impact. _{I am absorbing its nanites to aid in the treatment of your other injuries. The damage from the Blue Beetle’s blunt attacks is excessive. And it will be easier to treat if you lie still.}_

Jaime followed the Scarab’s order. He lay still and tried not to think of the aching pain inundating his body. Unfortunately the thing his mind decided to focus on was worse.

He was right.

 _He_ was right.

And he was happy he was because it validated his trust in his friend. It proved that the Scarab was not the monster that so many seemed to assume that he was. But it also meant....

Before, when they would have their disagreements over this, the Scarab would insist that Jaime wasn’t, couldn’t, be the cause of everything going wrong, would never serve the Reach. And Jaime took a guilty comfort in that. That despite logic the Scarab would believe in him. But now...

What would he do if he was in the Scarab’s place? He knew what he did when he first learned of Bart’s prophecy. Frankly turnaround was fair play.

Jaime blinked hard. The Scarab deserved someone who would keep them from the Reach, not hand them over. And even though Jaime swore to himself that he would never.

Now he knew that he would.

_{Starro.}_

“Huh?” His voice was brittle, but at the moment Jaime didn’t have the energy to care.

_{Pieces of Starro were used to control the League. The Reach could have adapted that. Or increased the effectiveness of human brainwashing. Or maybe have have corrupted your sensory inputs so that-}_

“Scarab. It’s alright.”

 _{No, it is not. That is not you. I know you just as you now know me. And the Jaime Reyes I know would never-}_  

The Scarab fell silent and Jaime could feel them thinking.

 _{We will transfer control to this time’s Scarab,}_ they eventually said. _{So that we can heal whatever the Reach did to this time’s Jaime Reyes.}_

“I’d...okay...yeah... we’ll do that.”


	6. H. G. Wells’ Time Machine

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Bart Conner and Zatanna also arrive in the future, and they set to work joining with the resistance and attempting to free the Blue Beetle. But not everyone in the resistance thinks that that is a good idea.
> 
> And she might just be right.

Conner fell to his knees. It felt like he was breathing fire. The air was wrong, and he could feel the cold sting of the wind for the first time since he arrived in the Arctic.

“ _Noitcetorp morf eht stnemele._ ”

After Zatanna’s magic, it no longer hurt to breathe; all that was left was a sick feeling of weakness and nausea.

He felt Zatanna at his side. He heard Bart speak, his sentence finished before Conner could understand it. He felt the gust of wind when Bart left. And he felt Zatanna pull his arm over her shoulder. As she helped get him to his feet, he heard her speak.

“Let’s get you-”

“It’s gone,” Bart all but shouted. His words were just as rushed, if not more, than before. But by now the feeling of unease had subsided enough for Conner to understand him.

Conner felt Zatanna shift, and he supported his own weight a little more so that she could reach out to Bart.

“What’s gone?”

“The whole lab. Everything.The walls, the doors, the roof,” Bart said in a rush. The words tumbled together as he spoke, and it was only when Zatanna squeezed his arm that he slowed down. “The notes we need to get Blue back. They’re all gone.”

Zatanna’s eyes narrowed.

“I don’t like this,” she said softly to herself and then louder: “We need to get to Sphere.”

Conner led the way. Zatanna at his side just in case his knees gave out and Bart raced around the protective bubble. The dark and the wind and the snow made it hard to make out anything. But even so as they walked Conner didn’t recognize any of the windswept ice flows. And judging by the increasing speed at which Bart was darting around, he wasn't the only one.

“This isn’t working,” Zatanna said, pulling the group to a stop. “Conner can you call her?”

“Comm’s down,” Conner responded, “and I doubt she can hear me over this wind.”

“ _srennoC eciov lliw hcaer erehpS,”_ Zatanna intoned. “Now she will.”

Conner nodded, called out to Sphere, and waited. Minutes ticked by. Zatanna sat and adjusted frequency on her communicator, still getting nothing but static. Bart cycled between hand tapping, foot tapping, and pacing. Conner simply stood and watched the horizon.

It was Bart who broke the group’s silence.

“She’s not coming.”  

“She is,” Conner answered flatly.

“How do you know?”

“We’re bonded.”

Bart made a frustrated noise at the answer, but he didn’t push Conner anymore. Instead he sat next to Zatanna. He waited, tapped his hands, waited, tapped his feet, waited, walked the perimeter of Zatanna’s protection spell, and then sat next to Zatanna again. It was only then that Conner saw the headlights on the horizon.

Sphere was racing towards him at breakneck speed. And once Conner could clearly see her she trilled, pushing herself even faster. She didn’t even slow down when she entered Zatanna’s protective spell, but rather shifted into a sphere and barreled directly into Conner.

Conner let her knock him down. And she shifted again. This time into pill-bug mode. She crawled all over Conner, trilling. She wasn’t holding him down, not exactly, but each time he tried to get up she was on top of him again, as if she couldn’t bare to stop touching him.

“Good to see you too girl.”

Sphere trilled again and Conner patted her again.

“We’ve got to get back to the team,” Conner said.

Sphere changed into her S-cycle form without hesitation. Conner hopped into the driver's seat while Zatanna and Bart got into the back.

And before even Bart had a chance to complain about moving too slow, Sphere was off, flying low and at her maximum speed.

As they moved farther from the Arctic the sky began to lighten into a smoky gray color, which made Conner wonder if there was a Volcanic eruption or large forest fire that he hadn’t heard of yet. That was going to be another huge thing to deal with, and Conner hoped that they would have the resources to deal with it and get Jaime back quickly.

That worry was only enforced as Sphere raced south over Canada, not bothering to turn towards well known Zeta tube locations.

Conner didn’t say anything. He trusted Sphere. Even as the tall pine trees gave way to grasslands.

Still he wouldn’t say that he wasn’t relieved when Sphere finally touched down outside of an abandoned gas and service station. She pulled up to one of the service bay doors, her lights reflecting off the broken glass of the door and the dusty half raised lift inside.

Conner waited for the glass garage doors to open. His attention was so focused on them that you didn't notice the oncoming threat until it slammed into Sphere’s side and sent them all flying.

Conner made a quick check of his team. Zatanna was unharmed floating slightly above Sphere who had switched into her pill bug mode. Bart on the other hand did not look as good, while he was physically unharmed he was frozen on his knees watching the thing that had attacked them.

Blue Beetle stood before them but he was not the Blue Beetle Conner knew. He was so much larger with a twisted smile that spread from ear to ear. And Conner couldn't help but wonder if this was what a fully powered Reach warrior look like.

“It looks like my day just got a lot better,” Beetle said.

His voice was deep, gravely, and Conner could detect the slightest hint of an accent long since scrapped away.

“It should have all crashed, he should have crashed,” Bart whispered, still unmoving.

Conner didn't have a chance to ask Bart what he meant, as Blue Beetle had launched himself forward.

The impact forced the air out of Conner's lungs. But he did not hit the ground. Beetle grabbed him around his throat, and lifted Conner so that they were eye to eye.

“Don’t die too fast,” Beetle sneered. “You wouldn’t want me to take out my frustration on your little friends.”

Conner let out a furious yell and grasped his hands together before slamming them down on Beetle’s arm. Beetle didn’t flinch. He only laughed and flung Conner.

Conner landed hard on his side, sending up a cloud of dirt and dust. He knew that he didn’t have any time to waste and that Blue Beetle would be on him soon, but still Conner’s body wouldn’t move quickly enough.

The seconds dragged on as he pushed himself back to a standing position. It was only then that he saw what kept Blue Beetle from attacking him while he was prone.

Zatanna’s shield was surrounding the three heros and Sphere, however it was already cracking from the strain of Beetle’s punches.

A single look at Zatanna’s face, which was pulled tight in concentration, let Conner know that the shield would not keep Beetle out for long. Conner rushed to place himself between Beetle and Zatanna, crouched low feet firmly planted. He only hoped that he could buy her enough time to get off the ritual. Not that they had any guarantee that it would work, but at the rate this fight was going it was their singular chance against Blue Beetle.

The shield shattered. All Conner’s focus was on Blue Beetle bearing down on him. Conner tried to hold his ground, but even so he felt himself being pushed backwards.

And Blue Beetle was laughing. A low gravelly laugh that sent shivers down Conner’s spine and also seemed uncomfortably familiar.

Then the dirt under Conner’s heels gave. In one terrifying moment he felt his balance falter. He stepped backwards, bracing for the attack that Beetle would launch when his guard was down.

But that attack never came.

He heard the clang of metal on metal, as a large plate slammed into Beetle. Running from the service station he could see Virgil, wearing a longer trenchcoat and longer hair than he remembered him having when Conner saw him last.

He didn’t have much time to think about that as a familiar green gorilla ran up and slammed his fists into Beetle. Garfield was closely followed by a small yellow streak, that could only be Karen, launching energy blasts at Beetle.

The last person of the group was an older asian woman who wore her long straight black and gray hair in a loose braid down her back. She had a large staff in one hand and launched magical attacks at Blue Beetle forcing him back as she ran towards Zatanna.

Once the slight distance was created between Beetle and the rest of the heroes, turrets popped out of the ground and service station. They fired on Beetle, and the time that it took for him to destroy all of them was long enough for Zatanna and the new woman to work together and create a second shield around the group.

Blue Beetle walked to the shield and laughed.

“Despite what you say, this won’t hold for long,” he said with a sneer. “A lot of resistance fighters are going to die today. And with them, any reason for you to keep trying to fight for control.”

“Bullshit,” Karen said, and despite her being small her voice seemed to echo off the battlefield.

Beetle merely laughed, but his earlier taunt and Karen’s call seemed to have pulled Bart back to his feet.

“Yeah,” Bart said, voice growing more confident. “He’ll never stop fighting.”

Zatanna pulled out the scarab amulet. She showed it to the other mage and as she started to give her an expedited explanation, Blue Beetle laughed again.

“You think that you can free the host from the Reach?” He asked.

“I know we can,” Bart responded. He rushed forward to stand at the edge of the shield, staring straight at Blue Beetle. “We will save you.”

“No, we won’t.”

Karen’s voice was sharp. She was full size now, grabbing Bart by the shoulder and pushing him back so that she was staring down Blue Beetle.

“Because it is bullshit that your host is anything other than a complicit piece of shit. He can’t be saved. That bastard doesn’t deserve to be, and more importantly I don’t think he even _wants_ to be. I think he just wants to live as the Reach’s pampered pet.”

“You think you know so much,” Beetle hissed, glaring at her.

“I do,” Karen answered, not backing down, and not flinching when Beetle slammed his hands down onto the shield.

That was when Gar transformed back into his humanoid form and pulled Karen away from the shield. Gar was taller now and more filled out. He also no longer supported the monkey tail nor a dark green head of hair.

Seeing him with crow’s feet around his eyes next to Virgil with grey twisted into his dreadlocks and the Karen with lines that showed from under her cowl, it was obvious to Conner how much older these three were compared to the Gar, Karen, and Virgil that he knew.

This was the future and that was the Blue Beetle that Bart had come back in time to warn against.

“Karen,” Gar said, still keeping her from taunting Blue Beetle but also standing between her and Zatanna. “This is our best maybe our only remaining chance to stop him. We have to take it.”

“It’s not going to work.”

“You, more than anyone, should trust Traci’s city magic,” Virgil said, placing a hand on her shoulder, “She can pull the energy from some ancient Bialyan temple here. And with that, Zatanna is positive that her ritual will work.”

“It’s not Traci’s abilities that I doubt,” Karen answered darkly.

“Then there is nothing else to doubt,” Bart said firmly, cutting into the conversation. “The ritual already worked. In the past, we freed him.”

Karen looked at him for a moment, lips pursed.

“Look, Wally you-”

“Bart,” He said, cutting her off and removing the cowl.

“Meloni’s-”

Karen’s response was cut off by the shield shattering and Blue Beetle rushing in.

Karen shrunk, Gar shifted to a T-Rex, and Bart replaced his cowl. They all rushed forward with Conner to meet Blue Beetle’s attack. Virgil didn’t join them. He kept himself positioned between Zatanna, Traci, and Blue Beetle. He wasn’t just guarding the women as they continued preparing the ritual, he also sent one large beam of metal flying at Blue Beetle.

The large beam got to Blue Beetle first. It discharged an electric payload when it hit, but Beetle barely flinched. He just grasped the beam in his hand so hard that finger imprints were left in the metal and then flung it back at the group.

Conner and Gar split away from each other to allow the beam to pass. It never reached them. Rather after it left Blue Beetle’s hand the beam slowed, reversed directions and slammed into Blue Beetle again, clinging to his legs.

When he tried to pull the beam away from his legs, the metal broke first, but the smaller pieces still clung to his legs. And when he tried to walk forward each step was slow and strained. Conner heard Virgil breathing roughly trying to hold Beetle in place.

Karen kept away from the strong magnetic field surrounding Beetle, instead firing her blasts from a distance. Bart however ripped off his goggles and comm, and then ran straight into Beetle’s personal space. And when Beetle was focused on trying to hit the speedster in front of him he was no longer moving forwards, towards Zatanna, Traci, and the ritual.

Conner pulled his comm out and joined Bart, with Gar following shortly after. They tripled teamed Beetle. Each one would get a few hits on Beetle before he turned his attention towards them and one of his bone crushing swipes would forced them to back off. Not that anyone of them would stay back for long. And as soon as Beetle’s attention was focused on forcing back a different person they would more forward again.

They didn’t do anything more than distract him, as even Conner’s strongest punches and Gar’s T-Rex bites, didn’t make a dent in the armor. But distracting him was all that they needed to do. Conner could see the lights from Zatanna’s ritual out of the corner of his eye.

Beetle activated his jet pack. This time he pushed back, away from the nearly completed ritual. Virgil fell to his knees trying to hold him.

“Please, help me.” Blue Beetle’s voice was a rough whisper forced through clenched teeth. It was obvious to Conner that he was straining against the jetpack trying to stay.

Conner grabbed him, pulling him close and helping him to fight against the jetpack.

Virgil collapsed, the magnetic field with him. Beetle and Conner launched into the air for a fraction of a second before Bart was on Beetle’s back, vibrating his hand against the jetpack and the scarab.

The jetpack disintegrated and deep cracks formed in the armor. Gar shifted to an octopus and wrapped around Beetle. While Karen flew forward, shrinking even smaller than Conner had ever seen her go.

She disappeared into one of the cracks on Beetle’s chest plate.

He didn’t have time to question her tactics as Beetle’s armor began shifting. Spikes formed, sharpening to deadly points that forced Gar to release Blue. Electricity gathered making Conner’s hair stand on for a moment before it discharged and sent Bart flying. Karen was still inside the armor. Conner didn’t know how she was doing, but many possibilities ran through his head. None of them were good.

But Conner didn’t have long to consider that before he felt the armor start to slip through his fingers.

“Come on, Blue. Fight it,” Conner shouted. He couldn’t readjust his grip without letting go. And with the Jetpack starting to reform, letting go would mean losing their shot.

“I’m trying.” Beetle’s voice strained. And even with his effort the armor pushed him backwards inch by inch.

Conner’s grip gave at the same moment that light from Zatanna enveloped him.

Conner heard laughter, the grinding of metal on metal, and then shrieking.

The light faded. Blue Beetle stood facing Karen. His eyes were wide, her suit was sparking. The air smelled of copper.

Karen raised a large shard of blue armor. She didn’t hesitate driving it forward, towards the bleeding spot in Blue Beetle’s chest where it had broken off from.

She didn’t hit her mark. Blue Beetle had activated his jet packs and fled.

Conner scanned the sky, but Blue Beetle had flown straight up past the layer of ash that kept the sky grey. It was impossible to tell which direction he had fled in. But since Conner was no longer able to hear either a heartbeat or a jet pack he was sure that Blue Beetle was long gone.

“What- why did you?” Bart asked. He pushed himself up to face Karen. “He was free.”

“He was preparing an attack.”

“He was fighting the scarab.”

Karen and Bart stared each other down. Bart had his arms crossed and foot tapping incessantly, while Karen gripped the shard of armor tightly one hand, while the other pressed against the base of her neck, against a small lump in her suit that seemed to be from a hidden necklace.

“He was lying.” She said. She drew herself up to her full height and crossed her arms. But when she opened her mouth she hesitated, and then pressed her lips into a thin line.

She turned away from Bart and pushed her cowl back. She closed her eyes and hid her face in her hand. Traci ran to her side, throwing her arms around Karen and running a hand over the twists in Karen’s hair.

Conner held Bart’s shoulder to keep him from pushing the argument. And even though Bart followed the unspoken request, Conner could still feel him shaking under his hand. So Conner pulled Bart with him to help the rest of their teammates get back on their feet. Besides he didn’t want to intrude on the moment between Karen and Traci. Still with his hearing and the silence that had fallen over the rest of the group, he couldn’t help but to listen when Karen spoke again.

“I’m sorry I messed up all your hard work...” Karen whispered, “He... I-”

“It’s okay.” Traci answered softly.

“It’s not. I should be able to handle this- It’s been so long but...”

“It still hurts.” Traci said gently, “I get that.”

There was a pause before Karen spoke again. “I need to go.”

“You don’t.”

“That stunt busted my suit,” Karen said with a harsh laugh. “Besides I kinda want to put this with...”

“Of course.”

Conner looked back towards them, this was not the time to split up. However before he, or anyone else could speak, Traci raised her staff and Karen vanished in a flash of light.

Conner saw Gar frown and Virgil sigh, but neither said anything. So Conner followed their example and did not press the issue.

The silence only lasted a few seconds before the clank of gears and the hiss of hydraulics could be heard coming from the service station.

The ground where Sphere had initially parked had opened, and a man, about Virgil’s current age with short gray and blond hair, one black earing, and glasses with a greenish tint, was raised by a lift out of the hole.

“Hey! V-Man! Do we have enough time to move this stuff before-” He called, miming an explosion with his hands.

Bart frowned. “We don’t have time. We have to-”

“We don’t know where Blue Beetle is,” Conner cut him off.

Virgil looked at them before shouting towards the man, “That’s the problem, Richie.”

The man, Richie, nodded solemnly. He pulled out a small rectangular device with a button.

“Wait,” Zatanna called, “I’m working on tracking Blue Beetle now. I’m not quite finished, but I should be able to give you some warning if he heads back.”

“That might work,” Virgil said, “Gar, where’s the closest safehouse?”

“Amistad’s been setting up a new one, not too far away. The stuff here should give him a nice kickstart.”

Now Virgil was smiling. “I guess we need to start packing,” he said towards Gar and Richie before turning a questioning look at Conner and Bart.

Bart looked away from Virgil, and towards Zatanna. “How can I help?” He asked her.

“By helping them pack,” she answered. “Besides after what happened it’s a good idea to give Blue some time to calm down.”

Bart’s shoulders dropped. He slowly followed Conner, joining him, Gar, Richie and Virgil on the lift. With a wave of Virgil’s hand the lift began slowly descending.

“What exactly will we be packing?” Conner asked.

“To start with, the vaccines and the supplies to make them,” Richie said. “After that, whatever else we can fit.”

“Vaccines?”

Richie gave Virgil a concerned look before answering Conner’s question. “The vaccines that keep the Reach mind control drug from taking hold.”

“I thought that were all destroyed,” Bart said tilting his head slightly, “along with the formula.”

Richie smirked. “That’s what the Reach thinks.”

“And that’s what we want them to think,” Virgil stressed. “Especially now that Karen is so close to an actual antidote that could cure, not just prevent, the ‘suggestibility’. If they get wind and change their formula now- that’s decades worth of work gone.”

The lift clanked to a stop. Conner looked at the large flat underground space. To his right was a chemistry lab set up. There were several tables with beakers and test tubes bubbling and condensing away on them. To his left was a large computer with several monitors set against the walls. At the far end of the room was a white wall with multi-colored handprints, in front of which sat a couch and table with mismatching chairs. Two refrigerators were also at the far end of the room. Each had big block letters painted on the front. One said ‘food’ and the other said, ‘NOT food’. Next to the ‘food’ refrigerator there was pantry space and a small stove and sink. There were also three doors between the computer and the far wall.

Gar grabbed Bart and directed him towards the chemistry lab. Brainstorming on a way to pack the lab for the easiest unpacking as well as a way to preserve as much of the in-progress vaccine as they could.

Richie went back to the large computer. He set to work, updating the most recent backup before deleting and overwriting all of the data.

As they worked, Virgil led Conner to the three doors. The first two he walked past led to a bathroom and bedroom with several cots respectively. The third led to a storage closet. Conner helped Virgil dig through the salvaged equipment and metal there. They pulled out two hand trucks and a hotel luggage cart, which they then pushed to the middle of the main room.

Conner went to Gart and Bart, carrying the boxes that they had packed to the carts. He was assisted with the packing of the carts by Richie. While Virgil took all the computer hardware that could not fit on the carts and held it between his hands, frying the electronics to ensure that none of the deleted data could possibly fall into Reach hands.

“Anything else?” Conner asked.

“Nothing we can bring,” Gar said, sighing and looking towards the back wall.

Virgil also looked back at the wall. “If they’re right and the ritual freed Beetle, we can come back.”

“Free Blue Beetle?” Richie asked throwing up his arms, “Since when was this a possibility?”

“Since we freed him in the past, and have everything we need to repeat the ritual here,” Bart answered, rushing in front of Richie glaring. “Do you have a problem with that?”

“No way,” Richie said smiling. “The ability to salvage and sabotage reach tech- not to mention Beetle’s raw firepower- that could change the course of the war.”

“Yeah...” In a fraction of a second Bart’s glare gave way to a smile which fell into a frown. “it should have.”

“It may have. Time travel isn’t linear or my area of expertise, but I do have some ideas on what is going on,” Richie said. He sat in the office chair in front of the large computer, spun to face it, pushed the mouse, remembered it was completely dead, and then spun back to face Bart. He steepled his fingers in front of his face as he spoke.

“Worse case for me, best for you, is that you created a new parallel timeline. Nothing here changes, even though you saved that timeline. Best case for me, worst for you, is that you haven’t yet left for the past. So you have to make sure that you leave, and once you do, this timeline resets to whatever changes you made.”

Bart visibly relaxed even as he asked, “I’m not sure I understand how that is bad for me?”

“I mean making sure you don’t prevent yourself from going back back is a pain,” Richie said and then rubbed the back of his neck. “Also there is a chance that if you are here when past you leaves and resets the timeline you could just.... Cease. When did you leave for the past?”

“February 28. 2056.”

“No worries then, today’s the 29th.”

“Today’s the first,” Gar cut in,  “Just because the Reach apocalypse came, it doesn’t mean that we stopped having a weirdly short calendar month.”

Richie laughed, “Just because the Reach apocalypse came it doesn’t mean that the .24 extra day each year no longer matters.”

“Wait really? It’s a leap year?” Gar laughed, “Well that’ll show the next generation. You only get one holiday of this event every four years. This has to be our official holiday then.”

Gar’s smile faded. He looked back at the wall with handprints. “A day of celebration once every four years, but days of remembrance every year. That seems about right for this.”

Conner took a closer look at the wall. The two most distinctive handprints were close together and both a shade of green. One was the webbed hand of La’gaan, the other a monkey paw print from Gar. Below was a black hand print, the exact same size and shape as Conner’s own. Those three prints were grouped, but there was no other one nearby.

Conner scanned the wall for more green. There was a light green up near the top of the wall, next to a gray handprint that matched the color of the metal duct directly above the prints. There was a dark green print with what seemed to be claws slightly overlapping a red one. There was a small forest green print next to a small pinkish purple one near the bottom of the wall. There was also green from the mixing of paint in the overlapping thumbs of a blue and yellow handprint set at about waist height. The pinky of a purple handprint covered part of the yellow print. But there was no other green. No sign of any print that could be M’gann’s, which meant that she didn’t survive long enough to-

“Do you want to add your print?” Gar asked, offering Conner paint. “I mean, yeah, you’re already on there. But different ‘you’ right? So...”

Conner took the paint that was offered. It was black, just like his ‘other’ print.

“Bart?”

Bart turned towards Gar and looked at the three handprints, one red - two yellow, that he was pointing at.

“The red one’s Wally. This one’s Don’s and that one’s Dawn’s.”

Bart stared at the prints. He blinked, swallowed, and then gently took paint that Gar gave him. He painted red stripes on his hand and pressed it into the space below the Speedsters. His red striped print was alone.

Conner placed his black print next to Bart’s.

Silence lingered in the room, only broken by the mechanical sounds of the lift clanking to a stop again, revealing Traci, Zatanna, and Sphere.

“Can you track Blue Beetle?” Virgil asked.

Zatanna’s answer was a confident “Yes.”

“Good,” He continued redirecting his attention. “Traci, Gar and Richie will need transport to the new base. Gar knows where it is.”

Traci walked forward, but Zatanna held out a hand.

“You should come with us,” she said to Traci, “The magical backup-”

“I will,” Traci answered. She smiled gently and walked past Zatanna. “Let me just figure out where exactly I’m teleporting these two. It won’t take me long, but while you wait, you should totally leave your mark on this place. The purple I used should still be here somewhere...”

“Don’t worry about it,” Zatanna said. She walked past where Traci was standing with Richie and Gar going over a detailed map.

She walked up to the wall, placed her hand next to Conner’s and Bart’s prints and said, “tniap eht yks.”

When she removed her hand, her print held the image of a clear night sky where the stars almost seemed to twinkle.

“So the Beetle tracker you have, I don’t suppose it’ll let you pinpoint him on a map?” Virgil asked. He waited for Zatanna to shake her head no and then continued, “Guess it’s a roadtrip with Sphere then.”

“Might be a little tight.” Conner said.

Virgil grinned. He pulled out a metal wedge from his coat that expanded into a disk. “I’m used to playing lookout anyway.”

Conner nodded, and there was a flash of light as Gar, Richie, and the packed supplies teleported. He then made his way to Sphere and sat in the driver’s seat. Zatanna sat in the small seat in front of him. While Bart and Traci sat behind him. Virgil sat on his disk, his levitation aided by the magnetic fields that Sphere produced. The lift activated and over it’s mechanical sounds, Conner could hear Traci whisper to Bart.

“I’m sorry about the way Karen acted. She- She’s lost a lot to Blue Beetle.”

* * *

 

Karen had walked this mountain road before many times. Each desert overlook had a story. That one was where she had looked out over the vast array of desert flower blooming after a rainstorm. That one was where a trailhead started that twisted up and down the valleys and mountains. It looked short from the road, but the valleys and rocks and plants kept large portions of the trail hidden until you reached them. She had hiked it once, not for herself but to bring back enough photos and videos for a virtual hike that she could share.

Her footfalls crunched against the stone and dirt on the road. And as she got closer to the cave, the fact that they were her footsteps alone made the world seem bitterly empty. She clutched the fragment of Blue Beetle’s armor to her chest, and wished, not for the first time, to hear the steady roll of wheels beside her. But that was gone now, never to return.

She hesitated at the entrance of the cave. She always hesitated. Long ago he would reach out and squeeze her hand. She would squeeze back.

She squeezed the armor shard once and entered.  

The cave consisted of an ‘L’ shaped path with the majority of the depth of the cave hidden by the 90 degree turn. The ceiling of the cave was rough, but tall enough in most areas that she could stand easily. She had to avoid walking directly next to the wall since the ceiling would dip low there, but since the path was so wide, and the floor so smooth, it was easy to do.

She walked deeper into the cave, past the bend that hid most of the path from the opening, and then the specially designed Zeta tube that was wider than normal and sat flush with the floor. That Zeta tube no longer worked. It hadn’t for a long time.

But the Zeta tube wasn’t why she was here. And she only paused at it long enough to pick up a lighter stored in a waist height nook behind it.

She didn’t need the light from the lighter to make her way deeper into the cave. She knew where each of the memorials within was by heart.

She went to the one closest to the Zeta tube first. It was on a waist high shelf and she had to crouch awkwardly to light the candle. When she did the flickering glow of the candle illuminated several green trinkets and a photo cut out of a yearbook of girl that Karen never got the chance to meet. She moved on to the next shelf quickly.

She followed the same procedure for the next two shelves. Illuminating photos of people she never met, a newspaper clipping of a man in uniform, a slightly pixilated photo of a woman in scrubs cropped from a group photo. Long ago, the ring that now hung around her neck used to be there, reflecting the candlelight in haunting ways from the frosted surface of the gem.

At the fourth shelf, and the last one that was at the awkward height, she hesitated after lighting the candle. She could see the entire photograph of Tye Longshadow clearly. Karen blinked, her breath caught, because she should not be able to see the whole photo.

_Where did it go?_

She held the lighter on, hoisting it up to illuminate the area. He was a hero, he _died_ so that she and the rest of the team could escape that Reach research ship. She remembered her very last look at him alive, glowing and growing. His lips were pulled into a tight angry line, his eyes narrowed in determination, as he ignored Jaime screaming at him and faced down the Reach warrior. He-

Karen caught sight of a lump of tattered orange fabric, on the floor near the shelf. She let her lighter go dark and gingerly picked up the bandana. She placed both the armor shard and lighter on the corner of the memorial and slowly folded the fabric. If she left the armor shard on top of it that would keep it from blowing or falling again. And then she could leave, she could avoid visiting the last two memorials she-

She had to.

She didn’t. He wouldn’t hold it against her if she never finished his memorial. But she wanted to. Even if it was hard, she wanted to do this.

Karen would get Virgil to make her something when she left. He and Tye were held together by the Reach, so it would be fitting for there to be a little touch of Virgil here, just to keep the bandana in place.

With that decision made, Karen picked up the armor shard and the lighter again. She turned away from Tye’s memorial and walked a little deeper into the cave. The path was not quite as smooth or as wide here, but there were two memorials, both set low with a soft mat in front of them that she could sit on.

Karen went to the older of the two memorials first. She sat in front of it as she had so many times before and carefully lit the candle. The flame illuminated Mal’s smiling face, and Karen couldn’t help but to smile back gently at the photograph.

He looked so very young. He had been so young.

They all were when that damn new Beetle ruined everything. Not that the new Beetle was new anymore. He had worn the mantle of Blue Beetle for almost 40 years, but still, despite the newbies, despite the passed time, Karen didn’t like calling him that. It felt disrespectful of the legacy. It-

Karen sighed. She didn’t want to go down that rabbithole again. She placed both the shard and the lighter in her lab and picked up a loosely bound stack of photographs that were worn at the edges.

She flipped through them slowly. Mal holding up a sheet of ice that had formed the perfect impression of a large leaf during a sudden freeze. The two of them at one of their high school halloween parties, where Karen was wearing what would eventually be inspiration for her hero costume, while Mal posed with his Superman done right costume. She had to laugh now knowing that Conner was actually visible in the corner of the photo. The two of them posing at the front of an amusement park. Mal accepting his high school diploma. The two of them, side by side on the couch at the cave, both absorbed in their work. Mal happily showing off his new bike. The selfie of the two of them at the Bowl-A-Rama.

When she had first set up the memorial, it had been too hard to go through the photos. Each one filled her with regrets. What if she had made more time, what if they had gone bowling that night, what if she was at the cave too, what if she had just never told him about being Bumblebee. But now those questions seemed distant. And the memories held in this memorial brought her more happiness than pain.

Every memory except one.

Of course that one had little to do with Mal, and rather the man who had helped her build his memorial. The man who she spent years working with, laughing with. The man who apologized that he couldn’t get down on one knee when he proposed. The man whose photo’s adorned the other, much more recent, memorial.

He was the reason that she was here today.

Karen moved to his memorial. Lit his candle. And saw his eyes, crinkled at the corner from a smile, looking back at her.

She blinked hard, and focused on the stone of the memorial instead. She gently went over it with her finger.

“How have you gotten dustier than Mal?” She said, her voice quivered even as she forced a soft laugh. “I swear I can’t leave you alone for a minute.”

Karen looked intently at her hand as she rubbed her thumbnail with her finger.

“Then again it might have been more than a minute. But running the resistance...”

Didn’t prevent her from coming here. Traci always had a standing offer to teleport her here, and lots of her experiments involved just waiting for a chemical process to finish. She knew that she had the _time_ to come here more often.

“Speaking of the resistance, you remember Bart right? Meloni’s son.” Karen glanced back at the memorial and her eyes caught on the white hem of a lab coat. She gave a short quiet laugh. “Of course you do, you never forgot a patient.”

Karen rocked forward. Reaching out, she placed her hand gingerly on the edge of his photograph.

“Apparently he finished her work. Time travel can you believe it?” The corners of Karen’s mouth pulled up slightly. “I know it sounds impossible, but Conner and Z are back from the grave. It’s so good to see them again, but still, I wish-”

Karen jerked, pulling her hand back.

“I guess you had too much work to do.”

She clasped her hands together. “I know I’m not one to talk. I’m just as much of a workaholic as you are. But I-I just wish I could talk to you. Really talk to you. I wish I knew what you’d do.”

Karen squeezed her eyes shut. Her heart was pounding, and she could feel herself shaking with each breath.

“Bart said that in the past he made, he was able to free his Beetle, and convince him to fight the Reach. He said that he was sure that the ritual would work here too. That our Beetle would join us in our fight against the Reach. But...”

Karen picked up the shard of armor. “As you can see, I didn’t agree.”

She held it in her hands for a moment before placing it on top of the labcoat, next to a bundle of photographs.

“I couldn’t.” Karen could feel her voice shaking. She could feel herself speaking louder. But she couldn’t stop herself. “Everyone here is here because of him. He did it. Not the Reach. Not the Scarab. He did it. He did. He-”

Karen folded forward. She hugged her arms to her chest and brought her forehead down to rest on the edge of the memorial. She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Why’d you have to go be a hero?” Karen choked out. “If you had just run that night... You would know what to do. You’d be able to separate out the hurt and pain and forgive him but I-”

Karen’s voice cracked. She drew in a shaky breath.

“I’m sorry but I can’t. I just can’t. Not after what he did. Not even to save the world. I know I’m wrong but...”

Karen trailed off. She felt her hands shake as they gripped her upper arms.

“No, you’re right.” The voice was soft, but Karen recognized it instantly. “You can’t trust Blue Beetle.”

Her heart pounded in her chest. Her breath caught in her throat. She didn’t dare to move, much less turn around. What if he really was there? What if he wasn’t?

Silence lingered, and the fear that the moment would end without her input rose.

“Jaime?” She asked, her voice was barely above a whisper. She was afraid of breaking the illusion. She was afraid of the response. She was afraid of the lack of one.

“I’m sorry,” he said quickly but softly. “I’m not- I -I’m from the past.”

Karen sat up straighter. Her heart was still pounding and she didn’t yet dare to open her eyes.

“They didn’t tell me that you were here,” she said.

“I didn’t come with them, not exactly. I-I’m trying-” Jaime cut himself off. He took a breath. “It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Blue Beetle is already freed, and he’s choosing to work for the Reach.”

“He is?”

“He is,” Jaime answered softly. He tried to hide it but Karen heard his voice hitch.

She took a deep breath to steady her emotions, slowly stood.

“I’m going to turn around slowly,” she whispered to herself. “When I do, he’ll-”

“I’ll be gone.”

“Don’t you dare.”

Karen spun around so quickly that the edges of her vision still wavered even after she stopped. But she didn’t mind. All she focused on was Jaime. He was standing. His eyes were wide in surprise, and he was frozen to the spot.

Karen couldn’t stop her tears.

“Oh my god. Oh my god.” Karen reached her hand towards him, stopping short. She slowly closed her hand and pulled it back. Shaking, she brought it back to her mouth. “Look at you.”

Karen wobbled, her knees buckled but before she hit the ground Jaime moved forward and caught her. He gently lowered her to the ground and kneeled in front of where she sat. His hand on her arm helped Karen keep her balance, but it was light, as if he expected her to jerk away.

She didn’t. She sat, tears running down her cheeks, unable to look away and unwilling to reach out. She still, in the back of her mind, thought that her eyes, her ears were deceiving her.

A hand brushed her cheek. “You’ve got a little...” Jaime trailed off the same way he had outside of Bibbo’s all those years ago.

Karen pulled him into a hug, her tears landing on his shoulder.

“I missed you so much.”


	7. Buried Memories

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> All Bart wants to do is find the future and newly freed Blue Beetle. But when their path takes them too close to where the grotto that Traci had teleported Karen to, Traci is sure that something bad happened. And while Bart can't believe that Blue Beetle, even after being hurt by Karen's attack, would hurt Karen, the molten stone that used to be the grotto is hard to argue with.

Bart hated waiting in silence. He could do it, especially if the life and freedom of a friend depended on it, but that didn’t mean that the silence while they rode in Sphere felt any less stifling.

Zatanna was at the front of Sphere, her eyes closed as she concentrated on her spell. Conner sat behind her, focused on following the directions she provided. Besides, Conner was never much for idle conversation. Virgil flew alongside Sphere. And although Bart was sure that he was up for a conversation, the wind made it hard to hear him, and Bart didn’t want to risk breaking his concentration and sending him plummeting to the ground.

He had been having a nice conversation with Traci. But as the trip went on and the grasslands became a desert and they angled ever closer to the mountains, her conversation grew more and more distracted.

Now all she could do was watch the mountains begin to rise beneath them, tap her heel, and clench her hand around her staff.

“I don’t like this,” she said softly shaking her head. She then locked eyes with Virgil and shouted, “We’re too close.”

Virgil approached, bringing himself as close to Traci as he could fly. “The desert is a big place there is no reason to assume-”

“No,” Traci cut him off. Her grip tightened on her staff, “I can feel it. Something is wrong.”

He jumped off of his disk and landed in the miniscule space between Traci and Bart. They both pressed against the sides of Sphere to give him some extra room, although it was not enough for him to sit. Instead he remained standing, crouched against the wind, and facing Traci.

“We’re about to face Blue Beetle again,” he said placing his hand on her arm.  “Will you be able to focus on that or will your mind be elsewhere?”

Traci bit her lip. “I don’t know,” she said softly. “I can try but-”

“I won’t ask you to do that.” Virgil answered in the same soft tone. “All I ask is that you are careful when you go check.”

Traci nodded at him. She mouthed the words ‘thank you’, and then disappeared in a flash of light before Conner could finish turning back to look at them.

“Where did she go?” Conner asked. Bart could hear a slight hint of stress in Conner’s voice. Bart didn’t let himself share the worry. They had freed Jaime, they wouldn’t need the magical backup to stop his attack.

“She’s checking on Karen,” Virgil answered.

“She’ll be back?”

Virgil hesitated. He sank down into the seat and rubbed the back of his neck. “She needs to know a location to teleport there. And,” Virgil waved at the scenery moving under Sphere, “we’re not exactly in a location.”

Conner gave a sharp sigh. “I don’t like being down two people.”

“You freed Blue Beetle, right?” Virgil said. He hesitated just long enough for Bart to nod in agreement before speaking again. “So we should be okay even down a mage.”

Conner grunted. He still didn’t look happy.

“If you are really worried we could stop and pick her and Karen up.”

“Are they close?”

“Kinda.” Virgil leaned forward so that Conner could easily see his hand as he pointed towards the ground off in the distance in front of them. It was mountainous terrain and even from their height, large sections of valleys were hidden from their view by other peaks. Still Bart and Conner could both make out a section of road between two peaks. “There’s a cave down that road, it’s where they are.”

Conner nodded. He turned Sphere slightly so that they angled towards the road. At the change in direction, Zatanna’s spell flicked as she tilted her head to look back at them.

“We’re picking up Traci and Karen.” Conner explained.

Zatanna nodded. She dropped her tracking spell completely and stretched, saving her energy for when they returned to Blue Beetle’s trail.

Sphere found the road easily enough, however even after reaching it she remained in the air, moving slightly above the surface.

Even though the road was cracked, covered in rocks and sand, Bart longed to jump out of Sphere and race ahead. He wanted to get Karen and Traci ready for pickup, or maybe just Traci considering that Karen had hurt Jaime after he was freed. But he didn’t know where the cave entrance was. And if he ran past it, it would take them even longer to get to and help Jaime.

Sphere followed the road as it twisted around the mountain, and then Bart realized that he wouldn’t have missed it. Or at least he wouldn’t have missed Traci, who was on her knees, hands brought to her mouth, in front of a field of debris. Bart was out of Sphere, and by Traci’s side before even he had a chance to think. He saw where the rocks were melted by a plasma cannon, he could still feel the residual warmth of the blast. This had happened recently, after Jaime was freed.

“Where’s Karen?”

Virgil’s voice got Traci to look away from the mess of rocks and at them. Her eyes were watery and Bart could tell that she was shaking. “I don’t know.” She said.

Virgil ran to the debris, to what must have been the mouth of the cave, and pulled at it. He called Karen’s name, and Bart felt his heart drop to his stomach.

Blue Beetle, Jaime, couldn’t have killed Karen. He just couldn’t. He was free now, he was a good person. He had to be. And this, this made no sense for a good person to do. She had to still be alive. He was just taking out his frustration about the years of captivity. Karen was fine. She probably just shrunk, and got stuck because of the damage to her suit.

“I don’t hear a heartbeat.”

Conner’s voice caused Traci to cry out. But that couldn’t be right. She had to be alive. Maybe she was just so small that Conner couldn’t hear her heart. Maybe she was just knocked out so that she couldn’t call, and they just had to get her out. She couldn’t be dead, Jaime couldn’t have-

Bart rushed forward, into the cave. He vibrated through the rubble grabbing anything hand sized or smaller. When his hands were full he raced out of the cave and scanned through everything he had picked up.

There was a newspaper clipping of a young man in a military uniform. The clipping was old and didn’t seem to be an obituary, but rather a write up on local veterans. The face seemed familiar but Bart couldn’t quite place it.  

He ignored it and moved on to a second photo. This one of a woman in scrubs. He could swear that he recognized her but the photo was pixilated and Bart could not get a good view of her face. He pushed it out of his mind.

He dropped candles and a green novelty ring and an action figure of Guy Gardner that he had hoped could have been Karen when he picked it up.

Then he saw a photo that made him place the other two. He saw Milagro’s face smiling at him from a yearbook photo. Which meant the photos he couldn’t place were Alberto and Bianca, Jaime’s parents.

Bart looked towards Traci and Virgil. “What exactly is this place?”

“A memorial.” Virgil answered, “to just a few of the people that Blue Beetle killed.”

Bart felt his heart sink. He became painfully aware of the orange fabric and photograph that he still held in his hands.

Vigil must have seen him look at the remaining items, since he spoke again. “Except Tye, Black Beetle killed Tye.”

So it was just his family. Jaime wouldn’t, he couldn’t- But if the Reach made him, what would that do to him...

Bart didn’t know if it was twisted curiosity or hope that Karen was still alive that pulled him back to the cave. But he ran back through, pulling out more candles, a shard of Blue Beetle’s armor and two stacks of photographs.

Without thinking he started flipping through the first stack. Each photo was of Mal. Standing in the snow, at a costume party, an amusement park, his graduation, sitting on a couch with Karen, with his bike, at a Bowling alley. The striking thing about all the photos was Mal was never older than the Mal that Bart knew back in 2016.

Bart placed the first stack of photos on the ground and started looking through the second one. The first image of was Karen, a decade or so younger than she was now, and a man with graying curtained hair and a goatee taking a selfie. He could see the top of the wheelchair that the man was seated in, and he had a stripe of blue paint across his face. Karen was behind him, leaning over his shoulder and holding the camera. She had a large dot of yellow on her forehead. They were both laughing.

Perhaps it was because the man looked familiar, a vision from Bart’s past in this time, that he took more time on the rest of the photos.

The next was that same man. This time he was in a doctor’s coat, and he seemed to be seriously contemplating the contents of a shelf that he sat in front of. The following photo seemed to be taken moments after the previous one. The man had twisted in his wheelchair to face the photographer, and was making a humorous face at them. That face, eyebrows up, eyes wide, and mouth opened in over exaggerated surprise, was very familiar to Bart. He remembered it, with his mom and honey and a painted sun that always reminded him of the sky free of the Reach that he was fighting for.

Then Bart saw an image of Karen and the man taken from afar. She stood behind his wheelchair leaning forward onto his shoulder and wrapping her hands around him. She was looking out into the distance. He, however, had turned his head slightly and was looking at her. One hand pressed against her arm.

The next photo was also far away. It was the man on a stage in a black cap and a black gown that had three green stripes on the sleeve. His wheels were woven with green and black thread to create the same three stripes like the ones he wore on his sleeve. He was shaking hands with another person, who also held out a diploma to him.

In the second to last photo, Bart could only see the top of the man’s head, no longer peppered with gray. He was leaning forward, his head resting on a table covered in books. His face hidden by arm that he was resting on. The books, the best Bart could tell, were a combination of notebooks and medical textbooks.

The final photo showed both Karen and the man, both holding diplomas. Karen was couched down so that she was at the same height that he was in his wheelchair. Karen was in a black gown with dark blue stripes on her sleeves. The man was in a plain black robe.

But he wasn’t just the man. Here, despite the beginnings of facial hair, Bart recognized him. Here, Bart saw Jaime smiling at him from the photograph.

  
  



	8. Fight for the Future

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A life or death showdown between Jaime Reyes and future Blue Beetle.

Jaime flew low and fast, desperately trying to hide behind the peaks of the mountain. He carried Karen bridal style, holding her firmly against his chest as he flew. She was unable to shrink, unable to fly herself, so this was the safest that he could keep her.

He could still hear Blue Beetle’s footsteps and shouts in the distance. The sounds bounced off the mountains, and the same peaks that were keeping Jaime and Karen hidden from Blue Beetle, were also keeping him hidden from them.

And even though he knew that they needed to escape Blue Beetle. Even though he knew that silence would aid in that endeavor. He couldn’t help but whisper ‘I’m sorry’ repeatedly to Karen.

“What for?” she asked, just as softly as he spoke. “I’m pretty sure you just saved my life.”

“But I also put it in danger.” Jaime’s voice was louder now. It didn’t shake. Jaime didn’t let it.

“When?” Karen asked, raising her voice as well. “I was the one that broke the armor. I was the one that pissed him off.”

“But I’m the host. I-” Jaime was cut off by a sudden movement. The Scarab took control of their flight path, flipping them over and angling them upward, narrowly avoiding a plasma blast.

Jaime’s stomach went to his mouth, for reasons that had nothing to do with the path the Scarab took. But the sensation passed quickly. It was the Scarab, not the Reach. And he trusted the Scarab. Besides if they wanted to stand a chance against Blue Beetle, they had to work together. Right now Scarab was the only one who could dodge the volley of plasma blasts, since with his back to the ground, Jaime couldn’t see where they were coming from. He couldn’t see Blue Beetle.

But still he didn’t dare turn back over. He had to keep armor between Karen and the plasma blasts.  Even if Scarab was doing an excellent job making sure that every blast missed.

“Listen here you little bug!” Blue Beetle’s words were shouted. But Jaime got the feeling that they were not directed at him.

The Blue Beetle’s aggressive tone was worrying, but the fact that the plasma blasts had stopped was enough for Jaime to let out a sigh. He just needed to figure out how to get Karen somewhere safe, how to lead Blue Beetle away and get the armor-

“Blue, move.”

Jaime jerked at Karen’s words. The Scarab tried to move them.

But they weren’t fast enough.

Blue Beetle’s hands gripped Jaime’s left foot. And Jaime was pulled out of the sky.

As they fell, Blue Beetle pulled his hands forward, and Jaime was flipped over his head.

Now, he was facing the ground, which was very quickly rushing up to meet him. His one thought was on Karen. If she was between his armor and the ground when they hit-

Jaime twisted.

The Scarab fired their thrusters.

Their back hit the ground. Their leg bent and popped. Karen disappeared from their grip. Her hands were at his shoulder, Blue Beetle’s at his throat. Crushing, and lifting him off his feet.

“You think so highly of yourself, don’t you?” Blue Beetle’s sneer seemed to take up the entirety of Jaime’s vision. “But in the end, all you are is a weak little boy.”

The crushing grip prevented Jaime from responding. But he, or maybe the Scarab, raised their hands and grabbed Blue Beetle’s arms.

_{Initiating control transfer protocol.}_

The pressure on his neck lessened. Jaime gasped for air. And Blue Beetle’s arms were ripped from Jaime’s hands as he was flung.

He landed hard. Dirt and stone flying out from where he hit.

Karen was at his side shaking him, trying to pull him up. But Jaime’s left leg wouldn’t support his weight. There was no time for the Scarab to fix it.

“Stop fighting this,” Blue Beetle yelled. He gripped his head momentarily before focusing his gaze and newly formed plasma cannon on Jaime. “I’ll kill this one too.”

Before the plasma bolt plast fired, the Scarab formed their shield. It dug into the earth below them and extended a couple of feet up, just enough to conceal both Jaime and Karen. Jaime was leaning forward. The arm not making his shield and his right leg were braced against the ground, providing support. Karen sat next to him, her back against the shield, bracing it with her legs. From where he was, Jaime could clearly see the profile of Karen’s face, the ripped fabric on the shoulder and neck of her suit from the crash landing, and the slight gleam of a metal necklace no longer concealed by the fabric. He could also see the plasma blasts flying past the shield. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the debris from the impacts that they made with the mountain face behind them.

“According to the Scarab’s topography scan, there’s a drop-off with a hidden ledge twenty meters that way,” Jaime whispered, jerking his head to show the direction to Karen. “I should be able to distract him long enough for you-”

“No,” Karen’s voice was firm, but as she continued to talk Jaime could hear it waver. “I’m not leaving you. Not like this. Not again.”

Before Jaime had time to question this, Blue Beetle’s voice rang out.

“I know why you're not cooperating, bug. But keep in mind, I didn’t kill Jaime Reyes. You did.”

Jaime blinked. He blinked again, tilting his head while looking at Karen.

He was completely unprepared for impact of the plasma blast on his shield.

The shock of the impact was greater than the actual force. But it was enough to get Jaime to put aside his questions and focus on bracing the shield.

He could feel the numbness in his leg as the Scarab started the healing process. He just had to hold out long enough for the Scarab to finish. Which he didn’t think would be a problem. At least not until Blue Beetle spoke again.

“You extended a tendril of armor, and _pop_! Right into his brain,” Blue Beetle taunted. Each word was said with a cruel laugh.

The pressure on his shield increased. He could feel the heat of the plasma on his arm, the scrape of metal on rock as both his foot and shield lost ground.

Jaime grit his teeth, pushing against the heat and the buckling of his shield. He planted his injured leg, pushing past the pain to slow his backwards motion. It barely made a difference, and he caught Karen’s eye and jerked his head toward the drop-off.

Karen ignored him.

“No!” She shouted, standing up from behind the shield and facing down Blue Beetle. “You don’t get to use his death as a weapon.”

Jaime heard the plasma cannon fire. He reached for Karen, to pull her down, but he wasn’t fast enough. The blast passed harmlessly to the right of Karen before he could get her behind the safety of the shield.

No more shots came.

Jaime peeked out from behind the shield. He saw Blue Beetle, his armor glowing bright blue, frozen to the spot. Blue Beetle didn’t notice him.

“He begged for his life. And I was this close to convincing the Ambassador to spare him.” Blue Beetle stated. His lips were curled up in a sneer, and the light of the amor flickered. “But you, stupid bug, you killed him. Not me, you. So make it up to him. Work for me and I’ll let him live.”

The light went dim.

Blue Beetle rushed forward, closing the gap in milliseconds. Jaime’s shield buckled at the impact, and he was sent skidding along the ground, before cratering into a large boulder. Jaime couldn’t stop the shout of surprise and pain as the breath was knocked from his lungs.

Jaime crumpled forward onto his knees. He gasped and braced himself for Blue Beetle’s follow-up attack. But he didn’t hear Blue Beetle’s footsteps. And the only thing he felt was Karen’s arm around his waist.

“Stupid bug!” Blue Beetle shouted. And Jaime lifted his head to see that his movements were agonizingly slow. As if the host was fighting against the Scarab to move. “I have to stop him now or the Ambassador will know. And once he finds out, this Jaime’s life is forfeit. And so are the lives of every stinking pile of meat you ever betrayed me to help.”

Blue Beetle’s movements were speeding up. He managed to take a step towards Jaime. Again Jaime gestured for Karen to run. And again Karen ignored him. She pulled him to his feet, and between her support and the Scarab fluttering their wings, he was just barely able to stand.

In a smooth motion, Karen grabbed something from her waist. She threw it at Blue Beetle’s feet and a half second later, deafening noise and blinding light overwhelmed him. The Scarab cut auditory and visual feedback. And Jaime followed as Karen used her arm around his waist to pull him away and down.

He sat and she crouched on the ledge under the dropoff that he had pointed out earlier. They were both pressed against the wall, and Jaime had his shield summoned just in case. Neither of them moved. Each breath short and silent. And as Jaime’s hearing slowly returned, he could hear the shouts of Blue Beetle, close at first but then fading slowly into the distance.

And then there was silence. Even the Scarab was just barely touching his mind.

He knew that the Scarab was healing him. But usually there was some request, comfort, or admonishment, depending on how badly Jaime was hurt, how much of it was Jaime’s fault, and how much his movement was disrupting healing.

But now, there was nothing.

_I know why you're not cooperating, bug. But keep in mind, I didn’t kill Jaime Reyes. You did._

“Scarab?” Jaime voice was soft, gentle, but the Scarab did not respond. “It’s okay. I know you like you know me. And I know you would never hurt me.”

_{There was no evidence of deceit.}_ The Scarab’s voice was as light as a dandelion seed.

Jaime’s brows furrowed. His mouth moved wordlessly as he tried to figure out words of comfort that the Scarab would take.

Karen turned towards Jaime. But her eyes did not meet his. They looked past him, and then closed while she took one long deep breath and then another. When she opened them, she did not look at Jaime, but rather at the Scarab’s leg that was looped over Jaime’s shoulder.

“I don’t blame you for Jaime’s- my Jaime’s- death,” she said, reaching out to touch the Scarab’s leg. Her voice was heavy and her eyes watery, but the pressure on that leg was firm and reassuring. “You were trying to save him. You did save him from death by torture at the hands of Blue Beetle. It’s not your fault.”

“Come on, _hermano._ You have to believe her.”

_{I do,}_ the Scarab said after a brief hesitation. _{Do you?}_

“Of course.”

_{Then you must abandon your guilt as well. You are not this Blue Beetle.}_

Jaime blinked. “I’m not?”

His tone must have changed as Karen looked at him and asked, “Not what?”

“Blue Beetle?” Jaime looked at Karen, his head tilted tilted slightly, waiting for her confirmation.

Karen pulled her hand from him and brought it to her mouth. She looked stricken.

“Nonono, of course you are, of course you are. You always will be. It’s just with all the news and newbies...” Karen paused. “I’m sorry I don’t want to make excuses. You are the Blue Beetle, always. Not him. Never him. He doesn’t deserve that title.”

Jaime let out a sound halfway between a laugh and a sob.

“Oh, Jaime.” Karen’s voice was soft as she covered his hands with her own. “I’m so sorry for all of this. Everything you had to see here. I’m sorry.”

Jaime cried, and laughed, and took deep shuddering breaths. His whole body shook, as if the weight of the world that he was tensely holding up was suddenly removed, and his body didn’t quite know what to do with the newfound ability to relax.

“Don’t be,” he said, leaning towards Karen. “I-I knew. I already knew that the world fell to the Reach because Blue Beetle betrayed humanity. But I- we didn’t even think...”

Karen froze. She looked at him, up at the ash darkened sky, and down the fire damaged ring around her neck. “You thought _you_ did this?”

Jaime nodded.

Karen leaned forward, making sure to catch Jaime’s eye before speaking.

“You didn’t betray humanity; you saved it. You both did. The Scarab betrayed the Reach and gave you the data that we used to create a vaccine to their mind control. You figured out the most impressive, ingenious way to distribute it right under their noses.”

“It must have been impressive,” Jaime said softly, grinning slightly. “As I’m not sure the Reach actually have noses.”

Karen laughed. Her smile reached her eyes easily. She held Jaime’s hand tightly. “Tens of thousands of people, the entire resistance, is free today because of what you did. You personally made sure that the Reach could never mind control Bart Allen. You saved the world from the Reach. Never _ever_ think anything different.”

Jaime wouldn’t. But where one fear was ripped out by the roots another began to sprout.

“How did they separate us?”

“Aqualad led a team. They-” Karen cut herself off. Her hand clutched around the ring at her neck, she moved her lips wordlessly.

“They captured me. Brought me to the Reach mothership.” Jaime supplied. Karen nodded but she did not release her grip. Jaime sighed sadly. “And destroyed the cave. I know, it happened in my time too.”

Karen glanced away. “Aqualad didn’t destroy the cave. That night he-” She cut herself off sighing. “He must have gotten what was coming to him since he wasn’t anywhere to be found when Tommy Terror showed up as the new Beetle and destroyed the cave.”

Jaime watched her focus on the distance. He took her hand. “Everyone made it out of the cave alive in my time,” he said softly.

Karen looked at him and smiled.

“Thank you,” she whispered.

Jaime let the moment linger. But he could feel the pressure and worry bubble up from the Scarab.

“Do you happen to know what happened on the Reach ship?” He asked softly.

Karen’s smile grew sadder.

“You never really said.” She explained. “All you ever told me is that the Scarab hung on just a little too long, just a little too tightly. They were trying to download information into your head.”

_{The Reach mainframe archives?}_  The Scarab asked.

“The Reach mainframe archives?” Jaime repeated.

“Yes,” Karen answered, “How did you know?”

“How did we?”

Karen opened her mouth, shut it. Looked from Jaime to the Scarab and back to Jaime. Jaime nodded even as the Scarab talked.

_{Before the Impulse rescued us, I was attempting to hack into the Reach mainframe. My backup plan, should my hacking be unsuccessful in stopping the head Scientist’s command frequencies, was to give you access to as much information from the mainframe as possible.}_

“So the head Scientist’s command frequencies,“ Jaime said softly, “Could you mimic them?”

_{Affirmative. However we would not be immune to its effects.}_

“That’s fine. As long as you think that you’ll hold onto me tighter than you would Tommy.”

* * *

 

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da, designated ‘Scarab’ by favored host ‘Jaime Reyes/Blue Beetle’, held on tight to current host ‘Tommy Terror’. They had successfully locked down the Tommy Terror’s auditory and visual processing centers following the deployment of the flashbang. Unit Khaij Da had also sequestered their own external sensor data from the Tommy Terror. They had already detected two life signs within twenty meters, and if the Tommy Terror found the temporally displaced Jaime Reyes, unit Khaji Da knew that Jaime Reyes would receive injury. That was an unacceptable outcome.

His Jaime Reyes had already been hurt. His Jaime Reyes was lost. And the temporally displaced Jaime Reyes knew why.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da had destroyed not only the life of their favored host Jaime Reyes, but they had also destroyed any fondness that the temporally displaced Jaime Reyes could have had for them.

They jeopardized the fondness and trust between the temporally displaced Jaime Reyes and the temporally displaced Khaji Da.

This was defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da’s fault.

Tommy could see again, he could hear again. But it was too late. He couldn’t see or hear the brat Beetle, or the annoying Bee.

“Where are they?” Tommy roared.

_{Unknown.}_

“Unknown my ass, you useless bug,” Tommy spat back, still seething in anger. “You know where those traitorous meatbags are and you have to tell me.”

The useless bug did not respond. Tommy had to do this the hard way. However despite his mental push, the armor did not form his wings.

“Now you fight me?” Tommy hissed. “You were quite willing to work with me when you killed Mr. Reyes.”

_{Doctor.}_

“What was that, bug?”

_{Doctor Reyes.}_

“Does it matter? He’s decaying Reyes thanks to you.”

The bug went silent; Tommy’s wings formed.

Tommy took the the sky and saw nothing.

Again he screamed in rage.

“You stupid useless bug,” he shouted, decreasing his altitude and slowly starting to move back and forth over the former battlefield. “I will overturn every rock until I find the one that the coward meat is hiding beneath.”

When Tommy turned toward the ledge, Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da increased thruster output 500% and raised host Tommy Terror high into the air.   

“Stop that you useless bug.”

The Tommy Terror’s command was meaningless. Khaji Da adjusted the output of the thruster, changing their trajectory. The ledge sheltering the two lifeforms would provide better cover now.

The temporally displaced Jaime Reyes would be proud.

Khaji Da focused their scans on the life forces they were leaving behind. Khaji Da desired to track the rhythm of the heartbeat of Jaime Reyes one more time.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da did not detect the other five life forces until host Tommy Terror did.

“If you do as I say, one of the five gets to live!” Host Tommy Terror shouted.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da brought danger to them. Favored host Jaime Reyes would be so disappointed in unit Khaji Da.

Tommy slowed the thruster. And even though the bug was silent, he took the return of control as confirmation that it agreed to his plan.

He looked over the remains of the destroyed cave where he’d found Blue Brat and his swatable friend. There were five pieces of meat glaring back at him, along with some New Genesis tech that would make a nice gift for the Scientist if it didn’t flee before the battle was done.

Superbrat was going to die. That just left Static, one of the Reach experiments who escaped. The Scientist would be pleased with either his return or death. Zatanna, who must have come with the brat Beetle. He’d never forget her face, nor the way it felt to kill her for breaking the bug. Maybe she could force it to listen to him, or maybe he could enjoy killing her. And the other two, the rebel witch and the little speedster, he had no strong opinions on.

So it didn’t really matter to him who lived. Perhaps he’d see which one begged the most, or perhaps which one begged for another life, so that he could force them to watch the other’s death and live with the failure.

Tommy landed in front of the so called heroes, laughed, and said, “Who wants to die first?”

He was pleased to see that Superbrat responded first. He was even more pleased to see that it took one of his more powerful punches to double him over. The Conner Kent that he had killed had been so weakened by the Kryptonite radiation in the Earth’s atmosphere that his final fight was nothing more than a disappointment. But now he could correct that. Now he could kill Superbrat slowly, just like he wanted.

He backhanded Conner across the battlefield. But when he tried to menacingly walk up to him, he found that his movement was slowed. Like walking in a dream, each step was slowed by a thousand tendrils of magic grabbing at him.

He could trace the magic to Zatanna. She would have to be dealt with before he could have his fight with Conner.

And when he took a step towards her, magical bees bit into his armor, followed by an arc of electricity.

It hurt. Now they would all pay.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da formed a sonic weapon. Virgil Hawkins was knocked down by the blast of the weapon but Traci 13 evaded it. She landed on the rubble of the destroyed memorial and Zeta structure. Her eyes were closed, her staff outstretched but Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da turned away.

The tendrils of magic returned. They slowed Tommy’s movement but did not stop it. With each step he took towards Zatanna, he could see beads of sweat break out on her forehead.

She shook with exhaustion, but it still was not enough to keep Tommy from reaching her or from grabbing her around the throat and squeezing.

_{I choose her.}_

“You don’t get to choose, bug,” Tommy said.

But Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da did not let him continue to squeeze his hand.

Tommy raised his other hand and transformed it into a blade.

“Fine,” he said. “I’ll just take her tongue then.”

“Holy ground! Consecrated with the blood of a hero!” Traci shouted. Her voice carried across the battlefield and reached Tommy only milliseconds before the bright light, intense sound, and crushing force reached him.

Tommy flung Zatanna aside. It would be awhile before she could cast again anyway and Tommy crossed his arms in front of him fighting the blast. It was harder to walk against this stream of magic than it was Zatanna’s tendrils, but not by much.

And when he reached the rebel witch, one swipe of his blade cleaved her staff in two. There was no fire, no fanfare, but the force that was pushing back on Tommy disappeared, as if it had never existed in the first place.

“That should have been stronger,” Traci whispered to herself. “Her sacrifice can’t have been in vain.”

Her movement was too sluggish to dodge Tommy’s punch. She fell at his feet and Tommy stepped on her head.

Slowly, deliberately, he increased the pressure of his foot. Static shocked him but Tommy persisted.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da compensated for their host’s movement and redirected the increased force from his foot around Traci 13’s head.

Tommy’s anger increased as he felt the bug resisting him.

_{She lives.}_

“No,” Tommy growled. He had already committed to sparing the other witch. The bug choosing who lives and changing who it chose was never part of the deal.

Conner body slammed into Tommy in an unsuccessful attempt to move him off of Traci.

Conner then collapsed when the defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da output a massive dose of kryptonite radiation.

_{If she dies now, so does he.}_

Tommy removed his foot.

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da eliminated the kryptonite radiation.

With effort Conner pushed his upper body up. He pulled his knees under him. He shook his head, caught his breath, and slowly, shakely stood.

And he and Tommy went back to trading blows.

Out of the corner of his eye, Tommy could see the speedster race to Zatanna’s side and Static pulling Traci to her feet. But none of them made a move to interfere in his fight with Conner Kent. So their actions were unimportant. He could hunt them down and kill them one by one easily enough once he had had his fun with Superbrat.

Tommy punched Conner, and Conner crossed his arms in front of himself to block. It kept the punch from doing too much damage, but still, it was satisfying to Tommy to see Conner stagger back and hear the soft grunt of pain that Conner made. So satisfying that Tommy didn’t bother to press his advantage and allowed Conner to punch Tommy in his jaw. Not that Tommy even felt that attack through his armor.

Tommy punched Conner, and Conner crossed his arms in front of himself to block. Conner was forced back several feet, and shook his arms before crouching low. He rushed at Tommy and threw his shoulder into Tommy’s stomach. The impact didn’t wind Tommy, and Conner was unable to complete the flip that he was attempting.

Tommy punched Conner, and Conner ducked out of the way. Without the satisfaction of a successful impact from his punch, Tommy followed the attack with a kick to Conner’s side. It sent Conner spiralling, and when he hit the ground, he did not immediately get to his feet.

Tommy stocked over and kicked Conner again. He sent Conner sliding across the ground.

“Come on, Superbrat, get up,” Tommy said as he slowly stalked up to where Conner lay. “Or is this all the time that you can buy for your friends?”

“It’s all the time they need.”

Defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da turned to see their favored host. Defective Infiltrator unit Khaji Da was always happy to see their favored host, however the temporally displaced Jaime Reyes’ leg was still injured, and he had to be supported by Karen Beecher. He should not have come here. He was in danger; current host Tommy Terror would kill him. Infiltrator unit Khaji Da could not let that happen. Infiltrator unit Khaji Da clamped down as hard as he could on current host Tommy Terror. But temporally displaced Jaime Reyes did not flee. He stood his ground and pointed his arm at Tommy Terror. It was transformed into a weapon that was unknown to defective infiltrator unit Khaji Da, however the design suggested that it produced frequency based attacks. Temporally displaced Jaime Reyes fired.

Infiltrator unit Khaji Da could feel their armor bubbling off. He could hear his host scream in pain. He could see the armor of temporally displaced Jaime Reyes also bubbling. If temporally displaced Jaime Reyes’s armor failed then they would be the only thing that could protect him from their host Tommy. Infiltrator unit Khaji Da clamped down tighter.

Unit Khaji Da could hear favored host Jaime Reyes shout. “ _Hermano,_ let go. Please let go of him.”

Khaji Da let go.

Tommy was free.

He had no armor, only a flaking husk that disintegrated around him when he moved. In one instant, he had lost his standing with the Reach and all the power that when with it.

“It’s over,” Jaime shouted. “Stand down.”

But it was not over. Tommy would not stand down. As despite everything he had just lost, he still had the ability to get revenge.

He sprinted at Jaime. Karen tried to position herself in front of him, but Tommy would not be distracted. He flung Karen over his head.

“Eobard-” was the only sound that Jaime made before Tommy grabbed him around the neck and silenced him.

He lifted Jaime up, but didn’t squeeze hard enough to kill. His revenge demanded more than that. So he kept enough pressure that Jaime was just barely conscious. Able to fight and feel, but not able to do anything. Tommy could see the armor reforming, trying to respond to his attack. But Tommy wouldn’t give it time.

He pulled back his free hand. Prepared a punch, making sure that Jaime could see it.

Jaime hit the ground, but Tommy never dropped him.

Blood soaked Jaime, but Tommy never punched him.

  
  
  



	9. Death of Blue Beetle. Long Live Blue Beetle.

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As for me? I'm the third Blue Beetle, and I know there will be a fourth, and a fifth, on and on. Some better, some worse, but the story, the name, the hero? That'll go on forever, past me, past us all. And I think that's kind of cool.” 
> 
> ~Jaime Reyes (Blue Beetle 2006 #25)

Karen tried to mitigate the impact from Tommy’s throw but she still landed hard. It took her several long- too long- seconds to pick herself up. She knew that as she was now, there was nothing she could do against him. But that didn’t stop her from grabbing an unnaturally smooth fist sized rock, slipping her fingers between the prongs along its edge, and facing the battle.

But Jaime was already down. And for a split second Karen panicked, seeing the blood that covered and surrounded him. But he was still moving, struggling to remove a severed hand from his throat.

Karen moved forward to help, but Tommy, now missing an arm, was between her and him. He was being attacked by a yellow streak. A tall speedster in yellow that vibrated his hand and broke Tommy’s bones one at a time, while Tommy swung uselessly.

Karen circled around the battlefield, choosing the path that would take her past Traci. Traci who was leaning heavily against Virgil, the side of her face showing a large painful looking bruise.  Karen ran to her. Traci smiled, tears streaming down her face as she reached for Karen.

Karen raised her own hands, and Traci caught sight of what she held. Traci glanced over at Jaime, still lying in the dirt and turned back to Karen.

“ _I’m okay,”_ she mouthed. “ _Go.”_

Karen could feel the six legs and two pincers on the stone she held. She could see Jaime still lying on the ground.

She ran to him.

But when she arrived she could see sections of armor still on his skin. Sections that were slowly being reabsorbed, not flaking off. She could see his legs twitch and curl as he tried to distance himself from the severed limb.

Karen wasn’t holding his scarab, she was holding _her_ Jaime’s scarab. She squeezed it once, pushed it into her pocket and then helped Jaime pull himself away from Tommy’s arm.

She held him as he flinched away from Tommy’s screams. She knew him, she knew that he would blame himself. But there was nothing that he could have done differently. She’d be damned if he would trade his own life, or Traci’s or any of her friends’ lives to save Tommy. Tommy made his choice.

“It’s not your fault,” she whispered. Jaime didn’t open his eyes, he didn’t lose his pained expression, but he did shake his head. Karen shook hers as well. “No, it’s not. You gave Tommy every chance to give up. You only called Eobard to save your own life, and the lives of everyone else here. What he does now, that’s his fault, not yours. Don’t you dare take that guilt.”

“I heard my name,” Eobard said.

Karen felt Jaime flinch at his sudden appearance. Karen didn’t blame him, she jumped too. But unlike her own, his heartbeat didn’t slow back down after the initial shock of his appearance. And as Eobard leaned over them, she actually felt it increase. He was scared.

Karen wrapped her arms around him and glared at Eobard.

“You were the only one responsible for Tommy’s death.”

Her tone was accusatory, but Eobard smiled proudly.

“True,” he said, kneeling down to place a hand on Jaime’s chest. His next words were directed only at Jaime. “Now kid, where’s the scarab?”

Jaime laid still, his breathing increased, and Karen could tell he was trying to get his metaphorical feet back under him.

But Eobard didn’t give him time for that. He pressed harder of Jaime’s chest. His smile disappeared.

“Where?” He asked again, voice lower and more dangerous.

Jaime cracked one eye open to look at him.

“It’s in my back,” he said mumbled, the words slurring together from the effort that it took.

Karen’s hand moved towards her pocket, but Jaime pushed his shoulder back so that she could feel the pressure on her leg. She could almost hear his voice. _Stop._

Eobard didn’t acknowledge their silent exchange. Instead he stood, took a step back from Jaime, and pinched his nose.

“Not your scarab,” he says with a hint of exasperation. “Tommy’s.”

“They’re still _my_ Scarab,” Jaime mumbled.

Eobard’s eyes narrowed. But before he could press Jaime again, Bart raced between the two of them, arms wide.

“Get away from him!” Bart commanded.

“Allen,” Eobard sneered at him.

Bart frowned, and glared at Eobard harder. “He- he’s not Blue Beetle, not the bad one. So leave him alone.”

Eobard laughed. “I know that. Otherwise he’d be dead.” Eobard looked at Bart and blinked. “You didn’t?”

Bart stopped. His mouth opened a bit an snapped shut.

“Allen, your incompetence is so great that it even managed to foil your own incompetence.” Eobard said, seeming to take delight in Bart’s discomfort. And he pushed more, rattling on about how much he must have hurt Jaime with the assumption, and didn’t he know about all the good Jaime did in this time?

Eobard’s focus was only on Bart. He didn’t notice that Jaime had sat up. Karen did.

She shifted slightly so that her back was to Eobard, and blocked any potential view of the Scarab she pulled out of her pocket.

“I should give you this,” she whispered, holding the Scarab out to him.

Jaime took her hand and closed her fingers back over the Scarab. He shook his head softly. “No,” he said, “you shouldn’t. You-”

Jaime cut himself off. He was no longer looking at her, but over her shoulder, his face ashen. Now Karen could only hear Bart attempting to argue with Eobard, but Eobard didn’t respond. He must be focusing on Jaime now.

“It’s _your_ mother’s ring,” Karen said slightly louder. Eobard resumed his taunting of Bart. Jaime relaxed slightly. “I’d feel bad if I kept it.”

Jaime turned his attention from Eobard to Karen, before his eyes dropped from her face to catch on the ring around her neck. She could tell the moment that he recognized it. Confusion that changed to pain and fear upon realizing the damage that the ring had received. That was pushed away. And the confusion was back, just for a second before understanding took its place.

“He gave it to you?” His question was light, free of accusation, like he wanted her to confirm his suspicion. Karen nodded. And Jaime pushed her hand and the Scarab back towards her. “Then you really must keep it. Future me, I think he’d want you to have it. Wear it if you want, or not. He trusted your judgement. So do I.”  

Karen didn’t have an argument for that. So she concealed the Scarab again. Jaime smiled at her before looking around. She did as well, and spotted Conner and Zatanna, Virgil and Traci making their way to the pair of them.

Conner helped pull Jaime to his feet. Karen stood as well and took her place besides Traci.

“Enough!” Jaime shouted, his voice cutting through the argument between Eobard and Bart.  He waited until Eobard turned to face him before speaking again. “You said you’d send us home.”

Eobard frowned.

“I said I’d send you home. I didn’t say anything about sending Allen or the other tagalongs back.”

Jaime glared. Eobard’s face lightened, and he spoke again.

“But if you help me find the scarab, I would be willing to help them.”

“You will send them back regardless,” Jaime answered, voice firm.

“Don’t get cocky, boy,” Eobard sneered. “It’s not a good look for you.”

Eobard’s face was centimeters from Jaime’s now. Karen could see the slight shake of Jaime’s arm, the way his breath caught and his mouth opened slightly. They were small things, but Karen had seen them before. The last time was when Blue Beetle appeared at his clinic and called Jaime out.

Then he had recovered quickly, sending Karen away with the vaccines and the sparse coded records that he kept. He said he’d be right behind her, but Jaime had exited the front door not the back. Jaime had faced down, and lost his life to the Blue Beetle, giving her time to flee and protect past and future patients.

Now, this Jaime, also recovered quickly. And all anyone else saw was confidence.

Eobard backed away first.

“When the scarab attaches to some other weak willed fool, nothing will have changed. And the Reach will still have the upper hand.”

“No,” Jaime said firmly. “Don’t underestimate the Scarab’s hatred for the Reach. When they choose a new host, it will be with someone who shares that sentiment.”

Eobard rolled his eyes and gestured to the ash filled sky and the injuries that they all received fighting Tommy.

“Yeah the scarab sure hates the Reach,” he said sarcastically, “just look at what it did.”

Jaime kept his eyes on Eobard.

“It is true that even after being freed from the Reach, the Scarab can still fight the host, still exert temporary control. But in the end they still must follow the host.”

Eobard stepped back. “What do you mean, exert temporary control?”

Jaime shrugged. “To a host they like? Involuntary armor is most common, but that doesn’t rule out full control when they think that they need to protect you.” A slight smile played at Jaime’s lips. “To a host they don’t like? Neutralising applied force, dimming or increasing or sensory information, seizing control of the body and potentially halting all movement.”

“It will like me,” Eobard said. But Karen could hear that his usual bravado was lacking.

“Perhaps,” Jaime said flatly. “They will like you better than Tommy definitely. But...”

Jaime let the silence stand after he trailed off. He let Eobard fill in the blanks. Eobard paled considerably.

“And you are positive that it won’t run back to the Reach?” He asked.

“Yes.”

“Fine,” Eobard said, and disappeared in a gust of wind.

Jaime had just enough time to walk over to Karen. Grab one of her hands in his hand, place his other hand over the Scarab in her pocket, and say, “Thank you. Thank you for everything.” Before Eobard returned.

“Well,” Eobard said with both disdain and impatience, “I don’t have all day.”

Jaime squeezed Karen’s hand once. He caught her eye, glanced to Eobard and shook his head. _Don’t trust him._

Karen nodded once. _She wouldn’t._

“Hurry up boy,” Eobard said roughly.

Jaime let go of Karen’s hand and stood beside Bart, Zatanna, and Conner. And in a blink of an eye, all four of them were gone.

“Lots to do. Reach ambassadors to kill and worlds to run.” Eobard stated before disappearing from their view again.

“Did we just trade one despot for another?” Virgil asked, carefully watching the direction Eobard disappeared.

“Maybe,” Traci said. “But a man is easier to fight than a galactic empire.” She smiled, turned towards Karen, who was still looking out to the distance. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah,” Karen said softly.

Traci sighed. She reached out for Karen’s hand and then stopped.

“You could have gone with them,” Traci said. “You could still go with them.”

Karen’s brow furrowed. “Why? What’s there for me?”

“Him...” Traci said softy.

Karen turned to look at Traci, and raised an eyebrow. _Really?_

“A little young, I know,” Traci said quickly. “But we, well Richie mostly, could figure out how that machine works and transfer you to a similar time in his dimension.”

Traci’s eyes watered, both of them, ruling out the cause being the bruise on the side of her face. But she also forced a smile.

“I know how much you loved him,” she said, her voice only wavering slightly.

Karen put both of her hands on Traci’s shoulders.

“He’s not _him,_ ” She said.

“He seems just as noble,” Traci said. “And the armor doesn’t look bad on him.”

“Of course he is,” Karen said. “But love isn’t just about a person. It’s the life that you build together. The memories that you share. I would never have those there.” Karen cupped Traci’s face in her hands. “But I do have them here.”

Traci’s cheeks and ears darkened and she looked away hiding a slight giggle. “Oh, right.”

“Oh right indeed,” Karen said. “And now that the creepy speedster is gone...”

She trailed off and pulled the Scarab out of her pocket, showing it to Traci.

“Are you going to use it?” Traci asked. And when Karen nodded, she smiled brightly. But that only lasted a moment before she spoke again hopeful tone long gone. “Are you sure? I mean we all heard what Jaime said-”

“Yes, I’m sure,” Karen said. “Jaime knew I had it. But what he said wasn’t a warning to me, but a threat to Eobard, to keep him away from me and the Scarab.”

“I see,” Traci said, leaning forward to get a better look at the Scarab. “So how do you-”

The Scarab moved. And before Karen could react, they had scurried up her arm and clamped onto her back.

When Jaime had talked about this moment, very briefly, only once, long ago, he had said that it hurt. But now, Karen knew what was coming, and the Scarab was moving slowly, gently, to integrate their systems. She only let out a gasp of surprise at the end, where the armor completely covered her and her vision became yellow tinted.

_{Apologies.}_ A voice within her head said. Somehow it sounded like Jaime, just a bit. _{I can remove armor if-}_

“No.” Karen said. “It’s okay.”

Traci tilted her head to the side.

“The armor speaks,” Karen explained.

“Ahh.”

“So,” Karen continued with a small smile, her eyes sparkling. “How does it look?”

“Not bad,” Traci answered. But Karen could tell by the tone of Traci’s voice that that was an understatement. “Way better than it looked on Tommy. But then again I like the person inside. And speaking of the person inside...”

Traci smiled, and then, from seeming out of nowhere, but Karen knew it was a magical pocket that Traci had made earlier, she pulled out two stacks of photographs, each tied together with ribbon.

“Kid Flash pulled these out of the rubble,” Traci explained. “And I thought you’d appreciate them.”

The words ‘thank you’ were near impossible to say. The static grief of the Scarab formed a lump in her throat when they saw the old photograph of Jaime at the top of the stack.

She closed her eyes, and held Jaime’s stack of photos below Mal’s. Eventually the Scarab spoke, in a soft voice.

_{The temporally displaced Jaime Reyes told me to inform you of everything about the Reach mind control drugs.}_

Karen froze, processing the formulas and methods and analyses that were dumped into her brain. All the bits of the chemical cocktail that she had been trying to isolate for decades now were at her fingertips.

And as she sorted through the data, put it together with her own knowledge and research into counteracting the drug, ideas sprung up. Almost as soon as she thought, verbalized an idea, the Scarab ran simulations.

It was like doing months, years, of research in seconds. And now-

“Traci! Static!” She shouted, unable to contain her excitement. “We need to get to a lab, now.”

“What is it?”

The armor was holding back her tears of relief now.

“We have everything on the Reach drugs,” Karen said, still shaking in excitement. “We can make a cure.”

“Are you sure?” Traci asked tentatively.

“Positive.”

With her staff broken, Traci didn't trust her teleporting magic to get them all to the new safehouse, and being in the middle of the desert made it hard for Virgil to get enough metal infrastructure to use to fly. But Virgil was able to send Sphere the all clear and use Sphere’s New Genesis technology to contact Richie.

As they made their way to the new safehouse, converted rooms under the Freeman ‘family’ mansion, that Icon had used to hide his own alien lifepod for generations. After his death, everything had appeared destroyed. But Amistad used every second of spare time, and redug the underground safe house. It was ready as a new base just in time, Karen didn’t know if she could bare to wait while a replacement lab was built from scratch, even though with Tommy’s death the Gas Station of Solitude was probably safe.

The trip to the new safehouse passed in a blur. But thanks to Virgil contacting Richie while they traveled her lab was set up when they arrived.

Virgil filled in Amistad on what had happened. Traci set to work repairing her staff. Richie started on getting his computer system set up. Gar left to get the others ready for a potential distribution of antidote instead of vaccine.

Karen didn’t pay them much mind. She focused on the creation of the antidote. Every step planned with a meticulousness enhanced by the Scarab. It took hours to set everything up, to check and double check concentrations, mixture rates and temperatures.

And then, there was nothing to do but wait for the chemical reactions to progress. Chemical reactions, despite her new found power and abilities, couldn’t just be sped up.

Virgil and Amistad had long since gone to bed. Traci was also asleep, half slumped over her broken staff that slightly glowed with energies that the Scarab could not describe. Karen wanted to move her to a bed, but hesitated, unwilling to break the circle and potentially undo all the progress that she had made to repairing her staff. Richie was up, but completely engrossed in his new computer system. And again Karen was loathe to distract him and make him lose progress. So Karen waited alone for the reactions to progress.

Absently she ran her fingers over the photographs that Traci saved for her. She looked through Mal’s stack first. The Scarab chirped quietly, and Karen could almost feel them save each and every photo in their memory banks.

She put down Mal’s stack and hesitated.

She could see the selfie that she had taken with Jaime while painting his doctor’s office. His smiling face stung to see, and she could feel the ache of sadness building in her own heart and radiating from the Scarab.

She looked away.

Her head moved back. And the Scarab stared at the image, transfixed. She could feel it getting stored in their memory. But even after that was completed, the Scarab would not look away, and filled her mind with frantic pained chirps.

“That’s the clinic we built to distribute the vaccine,” she explained softly. “You know, the vaccine, that you made possible with the data you gave him.”

_{I hurt him when I gave that data,}_ The Scarab whispered softly, _{I marked him for death with it.}_

“I don’t think he saw it that way,” Karen said. “He always told me it was a precious gift. And I agree. Without that knowledge we would not have had a chance.”

The Scarab fell silent. They let Karen blink again, and returned control of her head with an apologetic thrum against her back. But Karen didn’t look away from the photo. Instead she touched his cheek where the paint was smeared, tracing to where it reached the edge of his goatee and mixed with it.

“Did you know Jaime couldn’t paint for shit?” Karen asked. The click from the Scarab let her know that not only did they not know that, but that they were very interested in knowing more. She happily obliged them.

“It’s true. He was a fine artist, and very clever, setting up a projector and basically coloring in the lines for how he wanted to decorate the clinic. But he was not a good painter, since, you know, painters need to make sure the paint goes where they want it. Not dropped onto the floor or splattered on other peoples faces.”

Karen smiled, and she could feel the Scarab hanging on to her every word.

“He felt really bad about it.” She continued, pointing to the yellow paint on her own face in the photograph. “So he offered to do his own in return. I don’t think he meant to get his whiskers though.” Karen laughed softly. “It was over a month before they lost the blue tinge.”

The Scarab chirped. Just once, like fleeting laughter.

Karen flipped for the next photograph.

The rest of the night passed like that, Karen speaking, explaining photos and retelling cherished memories, and the Scarab listening, occasionally chirping or questioning.

Karen could feel the tears run down her face. But for the first time talking about him did not feel like submerging and holding her hand in ice water. She still felt guilty for leaving him the night he died, but it was no longer oppressive. And each time she reminded the Scarab that it was not their fault, they reminded her of the same thing. Karen was not the only one who’s sharp pain was changing to grief. It was still a loss still aching. But Karen had made a new life, a happy one, that she was sure he would be happy of. And the Scarab was beginning to realize that they had that same option.

If they would take it or not, Karen didn’t know. She didn’t know much about what the future would hold. But the one thing that she did know was that it will be a free future, for both, for all of them.


	10. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Jaime finally returns home, has several important conversations, and goes with bowling with friends.

Jaime was going home, and he now knew, really knew, that he didn’t have to worry about becoming the Beetle of Bart’s future, which eliminated all of the uneasiness he had felt when he first time traveled with Eobard. In fact the only thing that confused him was the fact that he, Bart, Conner and Zatanna, were all back in Eobard’s base.

He expected to be in the Chihuahuan Desert, not standing in a hallway, facing the door that led to his old cot.

“Why here?” Jaime asked in a hushed whisper, tilting his head slightly.

_{It is a known location,}_ the Scarab explained. _{Which reduces the risk of intersection with a solid object.}_

His stomach clenched and Jaime pushed the image of reappearing bisected with a rock or cactus out of his mind. He was home now, everyone one was safe. It was over-

“Back so soon?”

Jaime's blood ran cold at the sound of Eobard’s voice. Did he figure out the deception with the Scarab? Or learn about Jaime letting Green Beetle put him on mode and decide that Jaime couldn’t be trusted?

Jaime felt his confidence waver.

“And you brought the tratorious bug with you.” Eobard sneered.

Bart and Conner stepped between him and Eobard. Zatanna stood by Jaime’s side.

“He’s not-” Bart started.

“He is. I saw him at those press conferences, hand in hand with the Reach,” Eobard insisted and Jaime felt his stomach drop. “Even if he did turn around _after_ they were defeated and stop the MFDs, that doesn't mean he wasn’t a traitor. Just that he was a traitor to the Reach too.”

It took Jaime a moment to realize that that had already happened. That was his moding from Green Beetle, the MFDs that Black Beetle planted. This Eobard wasn’t from the timeline that they had just left, he was from the future, this future. Which meant-

“You’re using time travel that accounts for paradoxes,” Jaime said. “You’re from this dimension, not Bart’s.”

“So it seems the traitor can use basic reasoning skills,” Eobard said dismissively.

That was all the confirmation that the Scarab needed. This Eobard didn’t know about the no armor agreement.

“Which is more than I can say for the rest of you,” Eobard continued with a smirk, ignoring the formation of Jaime’s armor.

Jaime ignored Eobard as well, his eyes focusing on the time travel device that Eobard held. It was identical to the one that the other Eobard had. The Scarab understood, and when the armor finished forming, they scanned the lab and confirmed that all the notes on time travel were gone.

“At least we don’t have to steal our work.” Jaime said. Maybe antagonizing Eobard wasn’t the best idea, but he had just gotten home. He had just gotten out from under the guilt of the future and the constant fear of retribution from the other Eobard, and Jaime was not going to let that happen again. He couldn’t let Eobard intimidate him into submission again. And besides antagonizing Eobard kept his attention off the rest of Jaime’s team.

Eobard glared at Jaime for a millisecond before his smirk returned.

“I’m just reaping the rewards of my interdimensional analysis,” he said lightly.

“Your _analysis_ ,” Jaime scoffed. “I got the data. Meloni created the theory. All you did was plug in the numbers. Your _contribution_ could be made by a calcu-”

Jaime was cut off when Eobard slammed into him. They both went crashing through the door behind Jaime, landing on the cot. Jaime heard the impact of the armor as the back of his head slammed against the far wall, but he didn’t feel it. The only thing he felt was the pressure on the armor over his heart where Eobard was vibrating his hand.

Jaime could see the Scarab’s countdown starting, plastered over Eobard’s angry face.

8 seconds. The minimum amount of time it took the other Eobard to get through the armor.

_{Preparing defensive measures.}_

“Wait!” Jaime shouted. 5 seconds. There was no time to spare.

Still.

_{Holding.}_

3 seconds.

_{Holding.}_

2 seconds.

No pressure.

_{Discharge.}_

The countdown froze just under one second. The cot collapsed under him. And Jaime couldn’t see Eobard, only the smoke from the smoldering rubble beneath him.

“Where?” Jaime asked, bringing his hand to cover the spot where Eobard’s hand had been. He could already feel a bruise forming beneath the thinned armor. But his mind was on the destroyed cot, the temperature needed to vaporize a body, and how awful he felt for being relieved.

“Long gone,” Conner answered. He knelt in front of Jaime, his hand gently encircling Jaime’s wrist and tugging his hand from his chest. “Let me see.”

“I’m fine,”Jaime said. But he still let Conner pull his hand away, and gently poke at the armor. It buckled like aluminum foil but did not break under Conner’s prodding, and Jaime didn’t pay it any mind. The Scarab would repair that section of armor soon enough. The only thing that Jaime worried about was the energy blast and complete disappearance of Eobard.

“Did we...” He whispered.

_{Negative.}_

The Scarab replayed the final seconds of the fight, filling in the sections where even their sensors were not fast enough to record with rough animations. Still it was enough for Jaime to get an idea of what happened.

Eobard attacked. Bart stole his time travel device. Eobard released Jaime and confronted Bart. The Scarab discharged their attack. Eobard looked back at Jaime, the image that the Scarab had captured showed his face contorted in surprise and fear. Bart destroyed the time travel machine. Eobard looked at the broken device, the Scarab’s ongoing energy discharge, and Bart’s angry face. Eobard fled.

_{I do not believe that he will challenge us again.}_

Jaime blinked away from the replay. He saw that Conner had stopped testing the damage to Jaime’s armor and was offering him a hand. Jaime took it and allowed Conner to pull him to his feet.

Jaime waited in silence while Conner called Sphere. He could feel his heart still pounding and fingers trembling. But he wasn’t shaking as bad as Bart was. Bart was standing next to Zatanna, who had an arm thrown protectively over him, as he squeezed the broken parts of the time machine so hard the tenseness of his arms could be seen through the padding on his Kid Flash costume.

Jaime let the silence linger as they all loaded into Sphere, Conner in the front and Bart scrunched between him and Zatanna in the back, and drove away from Eobard’s lab.

It was only after they had driven outside of the radio silence zone, and Conner and Zatanna had started to debrief the team over their comms that Jaime felt comfortable breaking the silence.

He turned towards Bart, who was still holding the pieces of the wrecked time machine tightly and asked, “Are you alright?”

Bart smiled at Jaime. Jaime raised an eyebrow, realized that that look did not translate well as Blue Beetle, and pushed back the armor. With his face and body revealed, Jaime was sure that Bart could see the full force of his unspoken question.

Bart’s smile dropped. He looked down at his still clenched hands.

“I destroyed my mom’s work,” he whispered.

“You kept it out of Eobard’s hands.” Jaime countered. “And even with the goal of fighting the Reach, he still- he’s not a good person.”

“I know that,” Bart said forcefully, catching Jaime’s eye. “Brutal murderers really shouldn’t have consequence free time travel. But-” Bart hesitated, looking away. When he spoke again, his voice was brittle. “I’m sorry.”

“For what?”

Bart audibly sighed. “I was supposed to save you from the mode. That was the whole point of my coming back, the whole point of my mom’s work. But because of me. Because I couldn’t keep my mouth shut- they got you.”

“Bart-”

“No. They never got you, Jaime. In my time, they never got you.” Bart squeezed the broken time travel machine. When he spoke again, it was a harsh whisper. “You insisted that you would never. But I- I didn’t listen. I was insistent and pushed you straight into their hands. And I’m sorry, I messed up. I put everything my mom worked for at risk. I almost lost everything.”

“No, you didn’t.” Jaime stated firmly, and when Bart didn’t look back up at him, Jaime continued. “Look, the Scarab was already working through the hold that Green Beetle had on me. The Reach couldn’t hold us. Not for long. Not with a host that fought them.”

Bart frowned. “You shouldn’t have gotten moded in the first place. I should have-”

“You can't change the-” Jaime cut himself off when Bart looked at him. “ _Now_ you can’t change the past. And really, who knows if the change would have been better anyway. I mean, maybe you keeping me off-mode means that the Reach kill my family in retaliation. Maybe without the time and experience fighting the mode we wouldn’t have been able to get anything about the MFD’s from Black Beetle, and the world ends. I won’t say things turned out perfectly...” Jaime trailed off to look over the arctic landscape, so close to where Wally ceased. “But I don’t have a reason to complain.”

“Everyone thinks you are a traitor,” Bart said bitterly.

“They think that of Kaldur too, and Red Arrow, and I’m sure that Rann still feels that Superman, Wonder Woman, and every other member of the League are evil destroyers.” Jaime gave a slight grin and a shrug of his shoulders. “I’d say that puts me in pretty good company. Bart, you didn’t let me down. And you didn’t let down your mom or the future she worked to build. I promise.”

“I still let down Wally.”

“So did I. I didn’t see that last-”

“It was hidden,” Bart said, cutting him off. “You couldn’t have been expected to. But I- I knew that I should slow down and yet... And now I’ve destroyed the one thing that could have changed it.”

Jaime sighed. “Bart, do you know why Eobard came to now, and not further back?”

Jaime waited for Bart to shake his head. He then continued with his explanation.

“The formation of dimensional rips destabilize time travel beyond the point that they occurred.“

Bart looked away. “So no time travel past my arrival,” he said softly.

“No time travel past when the MFD tore a hole into the Bleed.”

Bart looked at Jaime, tilting his head slightly. “The Bleed? Is that what happened to Wally?”

“I dunno, maybe?” Jaime looked out over the arctic landscape. “I can send you all the data that the Scarab has on it. But Eobard’s notes would have had more details.”

“One more reason for Gramps and I to catch Zoom, right?”

“Yeah.” Jaime said softly, not looking back.

“Do you want in?” Bart asked. “I know he-”

“No thank you,” Jaime cut in firmly. “I mean, I'll be there if you need me, but I'd rather stay far _far_ away from kill or be killed situations.”

“Right.”

Silence returned and Jaime let it stay. He didn’t speak again until Sphere stopped, still surrounded by arctic wilderness. At which point Jaime let out a very ungraceful “Huh?”

_{The Bioship has arrived,}_ the Scarab said.

“Called in for a pickup,” Conner explained at the same time. “This will be faster for getting you home.”

“Thank you,” Jaime said as he, Bart, and Zatanna moved to the Bioship.

Conner nodded in acknowledgement and stayed with Sphere to fly back with her.

Upon arriving at the bridge of the Bioship, Jaime noticed that there were only two people there: M’gann, who was flying the ship, and Kaldur.

Jaime let out a breath that he hadn’t realized that he had been holding. Kaldur was safe. Eobard hadn’t hurt him. Although the fact that even after approaching Jaime, Kaldur refused to look directly at him, kept Jaime slightly on edge.

But before he could bring it up, Kaldur spoke.

“Your family is safe,” Kaldur said, his voice soft. “But from what I have gathered from Conner's debrief, that is not a surprise. I now assume that Eobard was not making a threat against them, but rather offering you vengeance.”

Jaime opened his mouth, closed it and then tilted his head slightly to the side.

“Karen had my mom’s ring. The diamond itself was burnt,” Jaime said softly. Speaking to himself and the Scarab more than Kaldur. But Kaldur still looked away eyes closed. “Kaldur, you don’t usually use fire-”

“But I brought the bomb.” Kaldur cut in. “It was only ever supposed to be a bluff, but that is obviously not what happened. It was my fault. And for what it is worth, I apologize, but I know that I cannot ask you to forgive me.”

“Kalur, you didn’t-”

“No,” Kaldur cut Jaime off. “But if Bart had not moved you from your house to the desert, I would have.”

Jaime bit his lip. He knew that guilt. He’d had it since Bart told him that he was the one that doomed mankind. Jaime didn’t want anyone else to go through it, but from his own experience he knew how hard it was to dislodge that guilt.

_{The Kaldur’ahm does not understand the combustion properties of diamond.}_

Jaime blinked as the Scarab showed him those properties, the heat produced by the bomb that destroyed Mt. Justice, and several other notes on the location of utilities around Jaime’s house.

“I don’t think so,” Jaime said. And before Kaldur could argue Jaime continued. “My mom always keeps her ring on either her hand or around her neck when doing her rounds. Her diamond ring. And the thing about diamonds is that they’re carbon, get them hot enough and they burn. That bomb would have been way too hot for the stone to survive, it also would have been too hot for the platinum band. And yet Karen had it.”

Kaldur looked at him. Jaime continued speaking.

“She told me that you disappeared after the attack on my house. Scarab told me that a large influx of water during the explosion could have prevented the ring from becoming slag, and that there is a big water main near my house, but not so close that it could have gotten around the right, around my mom, my family without...”

Jaime squeezed his eyes shut hard. Kaldur grabbed his shoulder and pulled slightly, and Jaime leaned into the contact which soon became a hug. Jaime could feel himself shaking. But Kaldur didn’t comment on it, and slowly the fear of what could have happened passed.

“Trying to stop something and failing, that’s not the same as doing the thing.” Jaime said softly. “I should know.”

“Thank you.” Kaldur said softly.

Jaime gently pulled away from the hug.

“And thank you. Your impromptu bluff instruction really helped me out,” Jaime said. He rubbed the back of his neck before continuing. “And I know that I usually have combat training and you have a lot of other duties and responsibilities. But if you ever have time, I’d really appreciate more instruction.”

“It would be my honor,” Kaldur said. Jaime couldn’t help the grin that started to form, and Kaldur continued with a firm tone. “We can begin after you have had time to rest.”

Jaime nodded.

The rest of the flight back to the Watchtower and subsequent Zeta trip to El Paso went uneventful, although Kaldur did accompany Jaime back to his house. And Jaime was relieved as Kaldur’s presence meant that he could field all the questions that Jaime’s parents had, leaving Jaime to enjoy a home cooked meal, welcome-home hugs, and collapsing in his own bed.

Despite how comfortable his bed was, Jaime didn’t fall asleep immediately.

“Thank you,” Jaime whispered into the pillow, knowing that the Scarab could hear him. “For always believing in me.”

_{I know you just as you know me. And the Jaime Reyes I know is a hero.}_

“So are you Scarab. So are you.”

* * *

 

Jaime spent the next morning filling in his parents on the gaps in Kaldur’s story and convincing his mom that his formerly broken arm was fine and he did not need to go to the hospital for it. It was only after he had gone through all the motions that she laid out for him, and her prodding lead to no further pain, that she relented and complimented the Scarab on their work.

The Scarab preened at the praise.

And Jaime was able to use that praise of the Scarab’s protective ability to get permission to skateboard over to Tye’s house instead of being driven. He had to call when he got there and another call if he was going to stay out past dinner, but Jaime didn’t mind. It kept them from worrying. And if he knew what he was going to say to Tye he would have accepted the ride just to make them feel better.

But he didn’t.

A quarter of the way to Tye’s house, he passed the Kord parking lot, and got off his skateboard to slowly walk through it. He told himself that he was taking it slow since he didn't want to hit any debris and faceplant. But the debris from the explosion was long since cleared, and he didn't get back on his skateboard after he passed the lot.

Halfway to Tye’s house he stopped walking.

His parents would know something was wrong if he didn’t go. But Jaime didn’t know how he was going to approach Tye about the Scarab. He didn't know if he'd still have his friend at the end of the day.

His phone rang, tearing him away from his fear. And he answered it without thinking, relishing the distraction.

“ _Jaime, hey, this is Karen, I’m wondering if you have time to talk?”_

“Of course,” Jaime said. He started walking again, this time to a park near Tye’s house that had a bench he could use if the call took a while. “What’s up?”

“ _Kaldur told me some of what happened in Bart’s future...”_

Karen trailed off and Jaime felt his stomach drop.

“The ring,” he said to himself softly before speaking louder to address Karen. “I am so sorry, that’s a whole lot of pressure from a prophecy, a super creepy prophecy, that I should have known better than to give. I should have never even mentioned it.”

“ _No no, you did the right thing. Kaldur needed to know that he didn’t-”_ Karen cut herself off. “ _Beside Bart knows, and he can’t keep a secret long. At least not one that isn’t directly related to preventing an oncoming apocalypse. ”_

“Still. It’s not fair to you. I don’t want to get in the way of the happiness you have. I don’t want to break you up or cause and strife, so if you need me to back off or change squads or whatever, I’ll do it.” Jaime said, staring at a wheel on his skateboard, but not processing what he was seeing. “Karen I- I’m so sorry.”

“ _I’m not,”_ Karen responded flatly. “ _I’m glad that I know, because I’ve learned two very important things. First is that I really need to make more time with Mal and my friends because by this time in the other timeline he was gone. And in this line of work that’s a risk that doesn’t go away, no matter the timeline.”_

Karen paused, Jaime could hear her take a deep wavering breath over the phone. He did not point it out, and Karen kept talking.

“ _And second is that I don’t want to lose your friendship. Future me obviously saw something in you, and the fact that you want me to be happy and to make my decisions unpressured reinforces that she had good_ _judgment._ _Here’s the deal. I’m not going to let ‘destiny’ tell me who I have to love, nor am I going to let the fear of this ‘destiny’ control who I see. So if you’re comfortable, I’d rather that you not feel the need to avoid me because of a future ‘what if’.”_

Jaime nodded.

_{She cannot see you.}_

Jaime felt his face heat slightly. “Yes,” he said. “I agree.”

“ _Good.”_ Karen said, hiding just a hint of laughter. Jaime just knew that she knew he’d been nodding, “ _So back to the point. With what we learned of Bart’s future, Mal and I decided that we are long overdue for a bowling night. And bowling is more fun with a group. Mal’s already invited Z’s new recruit, so I’m wondering if you want to come as well.”_

Jaime remembered that he couldn’t just nod this time. “That would be great. I’ll just need to tell my parents.”

“ _Of course. And you should invite Tye too.”_

Karen’s invitation sounded spur of the moment, but it took the Scarab just a couple of milliseconds to inform him that it was probably planned before the call. They both remembered the orange bandana illuminated by a candle in the memorial cave.

And yet Jaime’s stomach clenched.

“I’d feel rude inviting him to a group get together without also inviting Asami...”

“ _It’s six people per lane,”_ Karen responded easily. “ _And don’t worry about cost, we’ve got everything covered, it’s our treat.”_

“What about transportation? I can’t fly them both, and they don’t exactly have Zeta access.”

“ _We know, which is why Mal’s looking at places in El Paso,”_ Karen cut off her easy explanation with a laugh. “ _Well, that and our old Bowl-A-Rama is now closed.”_

Jaime was out of excuses. “Okay cool. I’ll text you when I know their response.”

“ _Good. I’m sending you the place and time now,”_ _s_ he said. “ _See you soon.”_

The reminder of the memorial spurred Jaime to quickly walk the rest of the distance to Tye’s house. He really wanted everything to go well, to be able to spend time hanging out with his best friend again, especially when he knew that the time could be short.

Still that reminder wasn't enough to stop the persistent fear that Tye would hate the Scarab, because he had every right to, and hate Jaime by association from growing. And that fear made him hesitate at Tye’s front door. Unwilling to knock.

But the door, the quiet house, and the fear brought back memories of the last time that Jaime was sure that Tye would hate him. His dad and Tye’s dad had shipped out together to serve in the Dominion war. But only Jaime’s dad came home. The only thing Tye got back were his dad’s dog tags.

All those years ago Jaime had understood completely that Tye could hate him, or at least not want to see him because of that. He didn’t blame Tye, but still he had hesitated at the door, terrified at the thought of losing his friend.

But Tye didn’t hate him and he didn’t lose his friend then. Which gave Jaime the courage he needed to knock on the door, and start this conversation about the Scarab.

However in the minute that it took for the door to be opened Jaime felt his resolve waver. And when he saw Tye’s face, the smile that was quickly hidden by a look of concern, it faded entirely.

“Karen invited us, and Asami, to go bowling,” Jaime mumbled quickly. “If you want to go.”

“From the team?” Tye asked scowling.

“Yeah.” Jaime deflated. He knew that Virgil said that there was a falling out between them and the team on Warworld. Not that Jaime knew what exactly it was, since he was Pinocchio, strings and all, then.

“I’ll go,” Tye said quickly. “And I’ll ask Asami when she and my mom get back from shopping.”

Jaime smiled slightly, “Okay.”

Tye responded with his own slight smile that disappeared when he sighed. A beat passed before Tye took a step back into his house and away from the door.

“Do you want to come in?” He asked slowly. And as soon as that question was out a rushed clarification started. “Wait here until they get back?”

“Sure.”

Tye turned away before Jaime could see his response. And Jaime followed him the few short steps from the front door to his living room. Hesitating only briefly to close the door and text his parents. Once those obligations were done, Jaime looked towards Tye’s back, took a deep breath and asked.

“Can I talk to you about the Scarab?”

Tye stood motionless facing away from Jaime. One shaky breath followed by another deeper one. It felt like forever until he said, “Alright.”

Tye slowly sat down on the couch, he looked at his own knees, his lips pressed into a tight line. Jaime sat on the armrest of the overstuffed chair facing the couch.

At this Tye let out a laugh, it didn’t last long but it was genuine. The chair he was sitting on used to be the one that Maurice always claimed. Jaime had taken to sitting on the armrest when he was with Tye as a power move. A statement that he would stand with him against Maurice, even if he didn’t directly confront him, or do anything else that would lead to Tye getting banned from seeing Jaime and losing his lifeline.

“No need, he’s gone.” Tye said.

Jaime slipped sideways from his perch to sit in the chair itself. He was directly across from Tye now, they would be eye to eye, but Jaime couldn’t get himself to look farther up than his own knees.

Jaime closed his eyes, opened them, and then slowly started to speak.

“During the Red Volcano fight, the Scarab was trying to make sure that you knew I couldn’t be trusted. They wanted to undermine the Reach, to make sure that you ran from their trap.” Jaime clenched his fists, his fingernails scraping against the fabric of his jeans. “But that doesn’t change the fact that what the Scarab did was harmful, and they apologize for it. You’ve have enough people disregard your ‘well-being’ because they knew better. But the Scarab has learned and they will not do it again.”

Tye was silent when Jaime finished his explanation. But before the silence could feel like it was dragging Tye spoke softly.

“So while you were the Reach puppet, the Scarab was trying to undermine them?” He asked.

Jaime nodded.

“And now?” Tye pressed.

Jaime looked up, meeting Tye’s gaze. “They’re my friend.”

Tye’s shoulders relaxed. The concerned pinch of his brow and flare of his nose faded. Jaime could even see a smile start to form. Just for a moment before every ounce of stress seemed to flood back into Tye’s body.

“Virgil put you up to that story, didn’t he?” Tye asked sharply.

“What?”

Tye frowned. His fist clenched.

“The day after you get back from being kidnapped again, and he puts you up to this to make me feel better.” Tye’s tone was angry, but like when he used to rant about Maurice, Jaime knew that it wasn’t directed at him.

“He didn’t.”

“Please don’t lie to me.” Tye snapped, voice cracking with pain, not anger.

“I’m not,” Jaime said reaching out towards Tye. “I’m sorry I-”

“No I’m sorry,” Tye cut him off, even as he pulled away from Jaime. “Shit man, you- you don’t have to make me feel better. I can handle the fact that I fucked up. That I hurt you in ways that will last for the rest of your life.”

“ _Hermano..._ ” Jaime trailed off. He could see Tye blinking rapidly now, but Jaime didn’t know what else to say, to do, to make him feel better. So he just watched, helplessly, as Tye pulled his feet up onto the couch and rested his head on his knees which he hugged against his chest.

“I’m not naive enough to think that the Reach would just give you the perfect Scarab.” Tye sighed. “One that fights them and befriends you. One that worries about what I think of them. I was on that ship too, Jaime. I saw how efficient everything was, how precise their experiments were, and how willing they were to get rid of anything defective.”

Tye looked up, met Jaime’s eyes and continued speaking.

“As much as I really _really_ want to believe you, I know the Reach would not do that. And I’m not going to let you be alone in this just so that I feel less guilty about getting you captured.”

Jaime blinked. “How did you get me captured?”

Tye rolled his eyes. “They were taking anyone who looked like a runaway, anyone alone at a train or bus station late at night. And I called you down to the bus station that night.”

“Tye, I wasn’t taken that night.”

“Really?” Tye asked. His voice seemed to have a note of relief that was completely gone when he spoke next. “But even if you weren't it still would have brought you to their attention.”

“I already had their attention.” Jaime said firmly. “I had the Scarab. Whether or not you called that night, they still would have been after me.”

“You already had the Scarab?” Tye asked, releasing the hold he had on his legs.

Jaime looked at the corner of the couch.

“At the time I thought the Scarab was Kord technology.” He explained. “Or at least that’s what the League thought, which seemed to be a fair assumption at the time, since they bonded to me right after the Kord building exploded.”

“I remember that night.” Tye said slowly, his head tilted to one side. “Your parents called me, trying to find you. In the end, since you were home when they got back, we thought that you had just missed them in all the confusion.”

“Technically,” Jaime said rubbing the back of his neck, “I mean I saw them as I went home, but was kinda freaking out about the whole, ‘now I can fly’ bit to let them know...”

“So why didn’t you tell me?”

“I was going to. I was.” Jaime said sighing. “I just- I was worried. When I first bonded with the Scarab, they were extremely... overprotective.”

“I see,” Tye said. “So you wanted to keep me safe?”

“Well yes, but I wasn’t worried about hurting you.” Jaime said quickly. “I just- I didn’t want to get your hopes up when the only options that I could get ranged from lethal to super lethal...”

“For Maurice?”

“Yeah.”

“Well no need to worry about that now.” Tye laughed. “It was pirating that got him. Can you believe it? Being held for that gave mom enough time to get free of him.”

Jaime beamed.

“That’s fantastic news.” He said, and turned his head towards his shoulder to talk to the Scarab. “See that couldn’t have happened if we used the plasma canon instead of the lock pick to open that shed.”

Jaime looked back to Tye who was staring at him wide eyed.

“You were missing and I saw him sneaking around there.” Jaime added quickly. “I was worried that you were in there more than preserving evidence-”

“It was you?”

“Well us. But yeah.”

Tye grabbed both of Jaime’s hands grinning ear to ear.

“And you promise that you are friends with the Scarab. That they are not hurting you.”

“Yes.”

“That settles it.” Tye said firmly, “Scarab’s my friend now. You vouch for them and they helped get rid of Maurice.”

The Scarab chirped in Jaime’s ear. Prompting Jaime to add. “They did also try to blast him, multiple times.”

Somehow Tye’s grin seemed to grow even wider.

“I really like them.”

Those four words made everything feel right again. And Tye and Jaime couldn’t stop talking. They covered everything from future plans (You think if we visit at least two colleges your parents will let us take a road trip together?), to team gossip (No dude, we’re getting team drivers ed because _someone_ crashed the Batmobile), to general catch-up (Mom’s been happier than I have seen her in a while, it’s nice) to jokes and explanations of powers (Yeah so the Scarab dissolves my clothes when the armor forms, then makes new ones for me out of sweat and dead skin cells... See I told you that you didn’t want to know). The only topic that was avoided was information on the future that Jaime went to. Jaime didn’t want to think of the orange fabric at the memorial, and Tye didn’t want to press Jaime when he fell silent.

They talked until Asami and Ms. Longshadow returned home. At which time Asami easily joined the conversation while Tye, and Jaime, caught her up on what she missed. And the afternoon passed quickly into evening when the Scarab alerted Jaime that it was approaching the time that they needed to leave to meet up with Karen.

Jaime made a motion to take the conversation onto the road, but Tye didn’t move.

“We don’t have to,” Tye said motioning to the spot Jaime just got up from.

“I did promise,” Jaime said shrugging. “But if you don’t want to come, you don’t have to.”

Tye leaned back, “That’s not it, it’s just- Karen’s the one with the bee getup, right?”

“Yeah?”

Tye sighed.

“Look ulterior motive of not wanting to embarrass myself in front of you or my girlfriend aside, I’m your friend Jaime. And I’m not sure...”

Tye rubbed his forehead, and Jaime could tell that he was trying to be tactful, but coming up short with the words. Asami however, was not.

“She downplayed the danger of you being under Reach control.”

“When?” Jaime asked tilting his head to the side. “On the Warworld?”

Tye nodded.

Jaime sat down.

“She, everyone on that team, should have known that we were under Reach control. The Scarab was working to undermine the Reach. They made sure that the entire team saw our attack, our fight, and knew that it was a serious betrayal...” Jaime rubbed the back of his head and grimaced. “Well everyone except Bart, who got hit hard as the opening blow and thus didn’t see.”

“I’m sure she knew dude, just-” Tye sighed and looked at Asami who nodded at him. “She seemed more concerned at Roy’s insubordination.”

“I can’t blame her.” Jaime said flatly. “She was between me and the airlock when he opened it. Scarab very nearly exposed their rebellion to the Reach by closing the airlock before anyone on the team could be sucked out or die of suffocation.”

“Oh.”

“Yeah, we were really lucky the Ambassador was more concerned with the crystal key than why his infiltrator, who could survive in space easily, would close the airlock, prolonging the battle.”

“If she saw that,” Asami said more to Tye than Jaime, “perhaps she was objecting to Roy’s word choice?”

“Which I corrected as soon as we got off the Warworld, and away from Luthor,” Tye quickly clarified to Jaime. He then counted Asami. “But the team didn’t know he was being he was being puppeted. Otherwise they never would have gotten in a position to get caught.”

“True. But Karen knew the Reach could,” Jaime said softy. “She was there when I-” Jaime cut himself off, shuddering, “She knew that I was trying everything I could to prevent the Reach from using me against the Earth.”

Tye closed his eyes and pressed his lips together. He took a deep pained breath.

“You know they can’t get you anymore right?” Tye asked. “I won’t let them, and neither will the Scarab, or the team or anyone. I promise.”

“Yeah, I know.”

“Good.” Tye said firmly, standing up. “So now you get to watch me suck at bowling.”

“Dude, I’m going to suck too,” Jaime said, “Those lower school birthday parties with the bumper lane that we used to go to were the last time I bowled.”

Tye snorted. “Yeah but you have an alien AI on your back, you know, one that can compute all the best angles and steady your arm.”

“I am very sure that the Scarab would be excellent at bowling,” Jaime said with a resigned smile. “But that would be cheating.”

The trip to the bowling alley was uneventful. And upon arrival it was easy enough to find the lane where Karen, Mal, and the new girl who was introduced as Traci 13. They added their names to the screen, and made small talk about food preferences as they got used to the weird shoes and picked out their balls. After they had all settled, it was Mal who went to the lane first.

It was also Mal who threw the first strike.

He turned from the fallen pins, smiled at Karen.

“I’m going to go get us some pizza, now.” He said. “So it looks like I planned that opening shot to get us food faster.”

Karen laughed.

She then took her turn, and bowled a spare. Traci followed Karen with a strike. And Jaime followed Traci with a score of five.

His first throw managed to knock down a pin all the way on the left, which bounced against the backplate and knocked down the pin all the way on the right. His second throw took down three more pins on the left side.

When he returned Traci said, “That was an impressive shot.”

Jaime shook his head, “Not really.”

“No seriously, the 7/10 split is a very hard shot. People usually take out all the center pins before attempting it though.” She said laughing.

Jaime returned the laugh, “Well I like to think that I’m one of a kind.”

Tye nudged Jaime’s shoulder as he went up for his turn.

“Bet you wish you had cheated now,” he said softly.

“Cheated?” Traci asked.

“Gotten the Scarab to help,” Jaime answered softly. “Which would be an unfair advantage. Besides I think this way is more fun.”

“Oh,” Traci said softly. “I feel a little bad now.”

A ball thumped in the lane.

Jaime grinned. “Yeah well so does Tye. He was this close to pulling ahead of me. And then he threw his ball in the gutter.”

“I was trying to spin it.” Tye said snorting. Not even bothering to watch his gutter ball roll down the rest of the lane.

Asami shook her head. “That is not how you spin a ball.”

She took her ball, and once the lane reset, she took two deep breaths, and threw it. The ball curved towards the gutter, but didn’t fall in. Instead it curved back towards the pins giving Asami the third strike of the game.

Tye clapped and Mal returned with two pizzas. He set then down, looked at the scores.

“You are going to have to up your game, Beautiful.” He said.

Karen snorted, but Mal was already at the lane.

And with his first throw, he only left two pins standing. The same two Jaime had originally knocked down.

Mal groaned, Karen laughed.

“You might want to ask Jaime, He’s gotten the 7 and 10 before.”

“Really?” Mal asked. “You gotta tell me how.”

“Dude I have no idea.” Jaime said. “Throw it really hard?”

Traci laughed and Mal followed Jaime’s direction. He threw the ball hard, hit the right pin which did bounce, but didn’t hit the other pin.

Mal groaned again but Karen didn’t didn’t say anything. At least not until she had thrown a strike.

Then she looked back at Mal and grinned.

“It looks like I’m not the one that needs to up their game,” she said.

Traci went up after Karen. She only knocked down five pins with her first throw, and her second went into the gutter. But she was laughing when she came back, not disappointed.

“You’re right,” she said to Jaime as she returned, “This is definitely more fun.”

“Aww, I didn’t mean it like that,” Jaime said, remembering the ‘cheating conversation’, “you don’t have to play bad just for Tye.”

“What about you?” Tye countered.

“What about me?” Jaime responded, heading to the lane. “I’m a whole point ahead.”

Although after he knocked down 6 pins and Tye got 8, Tye was quick to point out that that wasn’t true any more.

Asami then finished the second frame with a second strike and the game turned into an easy rhythm.

Mal, Karen, and Asami would offer tips, like keep your wrist behind the ball, and Tye’s, Jaime’s, and Traci’s scores slowly crept up. The third round both Jaime and Tye got a strike. But that had very little to do with the instruction that they were getting, and much more to do with Traci making sure, as she put it, that the race to the bottom was fair.

It was the seventh frame when Jaime scored his first spare. It was also the seventh frame, after Tye had gone up to take his turn, that Traci asked him quietly.

“You were part of the group that went to the future, right?”

“Yeah,” Jaime said slowly. He was looking more at the plastic seat than he was at Traci.

“I’ve got a really important question.”

Jaime took a deep breath. Out of the corner of his eye he could see Tye looking at him pointedly and Jaime mouthed ‘I’m okay’ at him before turning to Traci and saying, “Sure, what is it?”

Traci turned her attention away from Tye and back to Jaime, who still had his brow furrowed and his lips pressed into a worried line.

“When exactly am I getting my hoverboard?” Her tone was serious, but she gave Jaime a wry grin.

Jaime couldn’t help but laugh.

“What?” He asked. “You didn’t pick yours up at the Jaws 19 opening?”

Traci gave an exaggerated eye-roll. “No. I haven’t been to a Jaws movie since 16 or 17. The whole sharks on a plane thing kinda lost me.”

“That’s fair” Jaime said with a shrug, “I mean it was 15 that lost me. Sharks swimming through New York city streets-”

“Hey,” she cut him off with mock outrage, “Street sharks is a classic.”

“The cartoon is,” Jaime responded, “But the bad CGI Jaws ripoff...”

Traci nodded in agreement, laughed, and the game continued on.

Jaime waited until the night was over and the group had left the bowling alley, and Traci had slightly fallen behind Mal congratulating Asami and Karen on their tie to enjoy the desert air, before he acted on the information that the Scarab gave him.

“Traci, if there was another reason for bringing up my trip, something I could help with, I’d like to.” He said, before hastily adding, “not that there's anything wrong with just doing it to make Back to the Future jokes.”

Traci smiled at him for a moment before speaking.

“It’s just,” she sighed, “I know Zatanna asked me to join because of something she saw in the future and... I inherited my magic from my mother. And Dad’s certain that it was that magic that killed her. He’s overprotective and worried that he’s going to lose me the same way.”

“And what do you think?” Jaime asked.

Traci shrugged. “I don’t know. I can’t help but worry about it...”

Jaime bit his lip, worried. “You used magic to help Tye and I get strikes, you didn’t need to do that if-”

“It was only fair. Besides just because I’m worried about it doesn’t mean that I should stop being me,” Traci hesitated, “does it?”

“No,” Jaime said. “In that alternate future, you were alive and using magic. You also had a magical staff of some kind that was broken in the last battle.”

Traci sighed in relief. She gave Jaime a small smile that slowly disappeared.

“I wonder if it was for protection,” she said softly. “Preventing magical backlash?”

“I don’t know.” Jaime answered. “Would it help if you could see it?”

Traci smiled. “It’s cute that you think I know all magical artifacts by sight.”

Jaime flushed. He rubbed the back of his head. “Well you would definitely know them better than I do.”

“Alright, lets see those fine artistic skills.” She said, producing a pen and paper.

Jaime reached out but hesitated when the Scarab spoke.

_{My realistic rendition skills > Jaime Reyes’ realistic rendition skills.}_

He tilted his head to the side and Traci spoke.

“What is it?”

“Scarab thinks that they can draw it better.”

“This I got to see.”

_{Not draw,}_ The Scarab clarified as they produced a small model of the staff in Jaime’s hand

“I did _not_ know that we could do that.” Jaime said, surprise in his voice.

“It’s cool,” Traci said crouching down for a close look.

_{I utilized the same process as clothes creation.}_ The Scarab preened.

Jaime blanched slightly. “It’s apparently made out of recycled dead skill cells and sweat. So I totally understand if you don’t-”

“And discourage the Scarab’s resourcefulness? No way. Beside I still think it’s cool.” Traci said reaching out towards the model but stopping short. “So may I?”

Jaime felt himself flush. It took him a moment to stammer out “of course,” past the goofy smile that had plastered itself on his face.

Traci carefully picked up the model. Her hand lingering where it brushed up against Jaime’s too long for it to be a coincidence. When he looked at her, she was smiling too.

However when she looked down at the model he saw her eyes go wide.

“It is bad?” Jaime asked.

“No,” Traci said whispering. “It’s the staff of Arion. It’s lost.”

“If you think you need it for your safety we can help-”

“Need is a strong word,” Traci said. “More like, that magical focus would be nice to have. But the fact that it’s lost, and such a tempting find for any sorcerer means that it is probably magically hidden. And that is going to make it difficult to find.”

“You don’t have to find it if you don’t want to,” Jaime pointed out. “I don’t want what I told you to turn into a ‘destiny’.”

“Jaime,” Traci said gently, “before you told me about it, before Zatanna found me, I thought it was my destiny to die young from magic. I said screw it, because my life, my rules, but that didn’t keep that fate from gnawing at me.”

Traci took Jaime’s hand in her own. “I’m not looking for it because it’s my destiny to use it. Screw that. I’m looking for it because it would let me create a really cool boom. And because I think I’ve got a leg up on every other sorcerer out there, since Dad and Ralph did teach me a thing or two about actual detective work”

“Awesome.” Jaime said smiling, before we looked away. “Look I get that you’re probably going to be busy tracking it down so-”

“Give me your number,” Traci cut him off, still holding his hand, “I’d appreciate your help.”

Jaime flushed. “It’s yours,” he said, “Although this whole thing seems to be more of your specialty.”

Traci shrugged. “Well then maybe I just want to spend more time with you, is that okay?”

“Yeah,” Jaime said with a goofy grin he couldn’t hide, “Totally okay.”


End file.
